Laura Valeri’s debut collection, The Kind Of Things Saints Do
 (2002), won both the John Simmons Short Fiction Award and the 
Binghamton University John Gardner Award in Fiction; John Dufresne 
described it as “a daring and stunning debut.”
The promise revealed in 
those stories has only deepened in the years since I first became 
acquainted with both Laura and her work. I have known her as both an 
academic colleague and a fellow fiction writer, and I’ve enjoyed 
discussing the art and craft of life with her. She is wise and funny and
 smart, a natural storyteller, a gifted teacher, and a devoted 
connoisseur of good food, good conversation, and good words.
Her most recent title is Safe in Your Head (2013), a Stephen
 F. Austin Press prizewinner, a novel in stories featuring recipes and 
luck remedies for women during war time. I was grateful that she took 
the time to share how these dreamy, powerful tales came to be, how they 
commingle magic and history and the fine food of Laura’s native Italy in
 a collection of narratives both ethereal and earthy.
You can find that interview here: http://fictionwritersreview.com/interview/whats-inevitable-an-interview-with-laura-valeri/
  

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