Many of the people in The Adventures of Mrs. Patropolis are inspired by my real life friends. I wrote the book for a very special friend when she was five years old. She drew the illustrations, and now the book is a hit with her friends, too. When not writing new stories in the Mrs. Patropolis series, I teach college Italian. Check out my book of arts-based Italian lessons, Stellare: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars (2015), from which all profits are assigned to fund medical care for refugees in Sicily.