Author Archives: girasoleazzurra

About girasoleazzurra

GraceAnne Andreassi DeCandido. 75+. Feminist. Flower child. Works with words. Thinks with music. My belief system involves food and family. Wrote and spoke and published about libraries, librarians, writing, editing, and reading. Now retired. Putting some of that writing here.

Words Are All We Have: A Very Brief Disquisition on Librarians, Technology, Access, Feminism, and The Truths of Things

Posted on March 9, 2023 by girasoleazzurra

Oxford University, England, & California Librarians November 6, 1997 Some wise person has said — I may have said it myself — that words are all we have. I have made my living with words, one way or another, for … Continue reading →

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What I Wrote about Cancer

Posted on January 5, 2023 by girasoleazzurra

29 April 2014 @ 02:19 pm Musings on what will be a long year   I am looking at months ahead with many many doctor and medical visits. I hope to be celebrating Christmas 2014 free of them at last.I … Continue reading →

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Vermeer: art was a language, and you could learn it

Posted on October 31, 2022 by girasoleazzurra

Vermeer: the Milk Maid, 2009 Once every other week or so, in eighth grade at St Frances of Rome school, a woman came to talk to us about art. She wore makeup and had a thick Spanish accent, which made … Continue reading →

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For Nana, written for my grandmother’s memorial, May 2003

Posted on August 18, 2022 by girasoleazzurra

Written for my grandmother’s memorial, in May 2003 What makes us human is that we know we will die. What makes us human is that we know we will live forever, in our families, in our children, in the memories … Continue reading →

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Memory: growing older

Posted on August 13, 2022 by girasoleazzurra

When I was a child in the 1950s and 60s, we lived in the upstairs half of a two-family house in the North Bronx. We had a porch, but no air conditioning, not even fans. On very hot summer nights … Continue reading →

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The Red Studio: Art was a language, and you could learn it

Posted on July 7, 2022 by girasoleazzurra

When I was in seventh and eighth grade, at St Frances of Rome school in the early 1960s, once a week a teacher came to visit who wasn’t a nun. She had a rich Spanish accent and an exotic history … Continue reading →

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farewell, beloved scent

Posted on March 28, 2022 by girasoleazzurra

Comme des Garçons was (and is) a perfume that introduced in 1994, a year when I was the editor-in-chief of a small professional magazine, a shopper of some repute, and at what turned out to be the height of my … Continue reading →

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Ten things you need to know about online classes, with a little help from the yellow submarine

Posted on August 19, 2021 by girasoleazzurra

(by GraceAnne A. DeCandido, for my graduate classes at Rutgers 8/2009) 1.The Long and Winding Road: Taking a class online is more work than an in-person class. You have to read more and faster, interact with your classmates more, log … Continue reading →

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Farewell, my linen

Posted on October 31, 2020 by girasoleazzurra

originally written in 2012 In the late 1980’s, I was a senior/executive editor at a professional/trade magazine. A friend and I were known by our family as “the fashion group.” I had achieved a personal goal of owning enough silk … Continue reading →

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Zucchini blossoms/Pumpkin flowers

Posted on August 8, 2020 by girasoleazzurra

Zucchini blossoms / pumpkin flowers, first published in 2015 or so. When I was a child, these were an extraordinary summer treat, almost magical, because no one I knew except our relatives ever made them. I made them today, and … Continue reading →

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