Keeping Away the Spiders

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About the Book: 

In a series of honest, often humorous and brutally frank essays, Anne Pia discusses sexuality, gender identity, reluctant feminism, and food as a sumptuous, sensual game-changer. She conveys her exhilaration at the transformative power of music and learning, clothes and fashion. She gives an unflinching account of coming to terms with a daughter’s disability.

This life-changing book shows how positive energy can be drawn from life’s most challenging experiences. Anne asks the central question: ‘Who am I and who do I want to be?’ and invites the reader to do the same.

Reviews: 

No one can question Pia’s lust for life... unquestionably a fire sign, fuelled for creativity, experiment, exploration and expansion, with bravado enough to voice her view; a feminist in the face of ‘male oracle’s’. This book is a tentative embrace with poetry.  JANETTE AYACHI

Brimming with insight, poetry and music. SANDRA IRELAND

About the Author:

DR ANNE PIA, poet, essayist and translator writes in English, French, Italian and Scots. She is a Saltire Award Finalist, a winner of the Crawford Gallery Cork, Flash Fiction Competition and in 2018 was awarded the prestigious Premio Flaiano Italianistica: La Cultura Italiana nel Mondo. She is also a member of the Guild of Food Writers and in 2022 and 2033 was invited to sit on the judging panel for the Scottish National Book Awards (Poetry). She been invited to review several poetry collections and her poetry and essays have appeared online and UK-wide.

Within a span of 13 years, since retirement, Anne has published three books of non-fiction, 2 full poetry collections and a poetry pamphlet. Her creative memoir and first book, Language of My Choosing was shortlisted for the Saltire Award for Best New Book of 2017 and the Italian language translation, Ho Scelto La Mia Lingua was published in 2018; Keeping Away The Spiders; Essays on Breaching Barriers was published in November 2020 by Luath Press; and Magnaccioni My Food My Italy, a celebration in poetic prose of the culture and way of life in southern Italy, the place of her origins, was published in 2023. 

 Her first poetry collection, Transitory, was published in 2018 and The Sweetness of Demons with translations from French, an oversetting of 14 poems by Baudelaire in Les Fleurs du Mal, was published by Vagabond Voices in April 2021. Dragons Wear Lipstick her poetry pamphlet, a tribute to the women in her life who have in big and small ways, detonated hierarchies, was published by Dreich  in November 2022.

Anne’s work focuses on cultural and sexual identity, and is firmly rooted in her Eurpoean heritage and cultural interests. She has read at the Stanza International Poetry Festival, SEALL in Skye, the Dundee Literary Festival, Southbank Poetry London, the Paisley and Portobello Book Festivals, Porty Pride, the Burns Birthpalce Museum and independent bookships across Scotland. She is listed in the Scottish Poetry Library Catalogue of Scottish Poets and is a regular contributor to poetry and literary gatherings in Edinburgh, Glasgow and more widely in Scotland. In 2018 she was a guest lecturer at the British Institute in Florence.

Anne has a strong background in Education and leadership.