FRANCES MAYES

Vitals

Born and raised: In Fitzgerald, Ga.
Educated: At Randolph-Macon Woman's College, The University of Florida and San Francisco State University
Resides: In Cortona, Italy, and San Francisco with poet Edward Kleinschmidt
Profession: Professor of creative writing at San Francisco State

Club selection

"I am about to buy a house in a foreign country. A house with the beautiful name of Bramasole. It is tall, square and apricot-colored with faded green shutters, ancient tile roof, and an iron balcony on the second level, where ladies might have sat with their fans to watch some spectacle below."

So begins the critically acclaimed "Under The Tuscan Sun," by Frances Mayes. Using powerful, poetic language, Mayes takes readers to the Italian countryside as she buys and restores an abandoned villa.

"Under the Tuscan Sun" has reached No. 2 on the New York Times paperback best-seller list. It was the Bee Book Club selection for December 1997.

"Under the Tuscan Sun" is part memoir, part travel guide, part cookbook. Says the New York Times: "This book seems like the kind of thing you'd tuck into a picnic basket on an August day. Or better yet, keep handy on the bedside table in the depths of January."

Or on a foggy December night.

Published works

Nonfiction

• "Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy," 1996

• "Ex Voto"
• "Sunday in Another Country"
• "After Such Pleasures"
• "The Arts of Fire"
• "Hours"
• "The Book of Summer"

• "The Discovery of Poetry"

• Mayes' poetry has appeared in literary magazines, including Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Iowa Review, New American Writing, Manoa, The Women's Review of Books and Volt.
• Her autobiographical essays have been published in The American Poetry Review, The American Scholar, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review and The Virginia Quarterly Review.

Four of Mayes' autobiographical essays have been selected as Notable Essays by Robert Atwan, editor of Best American Essays.

Mayes was granted a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1988.

She has directed The Poetry Center and chaired the Department of Creative Writing at San Francisco State.

Related links

• Sacramento Bee interview
• Excerpt of "Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy"
• "Under the Tuscan Sun"
• Send the author e-mail