An Academy of American Poets winner, Maria Giura PhD is the author of Celibate: A Memoir published by Apprentice House Press, which won a First Place Independent Press Award, and What My Father Taught Me, published by Bordighera Press, which was a finalist for the Paterson Book Prize. Her writing has also appeared, or is forthcoming, in New York Quarterly, Prime Number, Presence, Vita Poetica, VIA, Italian Americana, Ovunque Siamo, Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival, Wagner Magazine, Lips, Tiferet, Celebrating Calabria: Writing Heritage and Memory edited by Margherita Ganeri and Maria Gillan and #Me Too Anche'io edited by Daniella Gioseffi.  Maria has also won awards from the Paterson Literary Review, and the Center for Women Writers. She was a finalist for the Milton Center Fellowship and a judge for the Lauria/Frasca Poetry Prize. She has read her work at and/or conducted writing workshops for several universities, reading series, bookstores and cultural founrdations including: California State University Channel Islands,  Calandra Institute (Queens College, CUNY), Montclair State University, Wagner College, Bryant Park Reading Room, Guerilla Reading Series Dixon Place, Scarsdale Salon (Bronx River Books), Inner Loop Reading Series (D.C.), I AM Books (Boston), A Novel Idea Boolstore (Philadelphia), Montclair Public Library, ANT Bookstore and Carriage House Poetry Series (NJ), Italian American Studies Association Conferences (varied cities), Italian American Writers Association (NY and Boston) and Casa Belvedere Cultural Foundation and Garibaldi Meucci Museum (NY) Maria has taught Literature and Writing at St. John’s University, Montclair State University, and Binghamton University where she earned her PhD in English. 

     Some of Her Favorite Reads:
The Boys of My Youth Joann Beard 
Limbo A. Manette Ansay
When I Was Puerto Rican Esmeralda Santiago
Vertigo Louise DeSalvo
The Slow Art of Writing Louise DeSalvo  
The Art of Memoir Mary Karr
Maria Mazziotti Gillan's books of poetry including, What We Pass On, The Blooms in Winter, The Silence in the Empty House, and The Place I Call Home
Looking for the Gulf Motel, poems by Richard Blanco
The Right to Write Julia Cameron
The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 
The Story of A Soul Saint Therese of Lisieux
The Reed of God Caryll Houselander
Manhattan When I Was Young Mary Cantwell
The Dream Book edited by Helen Barolini
Selected Poems T.S. Eliot
The Essential Rumi translations by Coleman Barks
The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living: Excerpts from the Works of Father Thomas Keating OCSO
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith
The Fortunate Pilgrim Mario Puzo