Background
National/international award-winning writer, Alessandra Gelmi attended boarding school in Rome, and received her BA in English literature from Barnard College, Columbia University.
She was awarded a teaching fellowship from Boston University, where she received her master’s degree and taught creative writing under the aegis of three Nobel Laureates.
Her literary awards include the Irene Leache Memorial Prize and the Amy Loveman Competition (open to Columbia University).
A former member of The White House Correspondents’ Association, Alessandra has written for dozens of magazines, international literary and academic journals, and covered philanthropy, culture, and the arts for three national daily newspapers.
She has interviewed personalities from Stallone to Coretta Scott King.
Her original plays "He and She" and "Falling Stars" were performed at The Source Theater Festival and The National Theater in Washington, D.C. In 2003 Alessandra was nominated for a Pushcart. Currently she volunteers to raise funds for Mercy Center, a clinic and school in Kenya. She is an avid animal welfare supporter, has funded several animal care initiatives, and currently writes, as a senior reporter for "The Epoch Times", published internationally and devoted to human rights monitoring.
Career
Alessandra Gelmi, whose first short story was accepted by The North American Review and published in Buffalo Spree, is the author of the prize-winning novel Who's Afraid of Red, a chronicle of love set against the Rwandan genocide, hailed by Joel Siegel of "Good Morning America" as "brilliant" and by Desmond Tutu as "historically important". This independently-produced novel won 6 national/international awards, (one, open to all university presses).
Alessandra is an accredited senior journalist and current correspondent for The Epoch Times in Washington D.C. Her interest in journalism stems from her college days when her father, a surgeon, operated on Ferdinand Marcos. Alesssandra asked to meet the former president of the Philippines and published the interview in The Dartmouth, the oldest college newspaper in America.
Gelmi's long-awaited first narrative poetry collection, "Ring of Fire, Selected Poems 1972-2008", was published internationally in 2009, won first place from the National Federation of Press Women and was shortlisted for the 2014 Readers' Favorite Book Award, later winning the Bronze Medal for Best (General) Poetry. Her published poems are archived in special collections at Bowdoin College, Boston University, Barnard College, Columbia University and Dartmouth College (where she studied with Richard Eberhart and reviewed Alexander Laing’s poetry collection Brandt Point for The Dartmouth).
Alessandra Gelmi is a board member for the Honorable Michael Feighan Collection curated at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson Library. She was Director of Communications for the Army Navy Club in Washington, D.C. in 1998, is a Friend of the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, a graduate of Landmark Education's Advanced Curriculum, a member of the National Federation of Press Women,, and a former Bread Loaf Scholar. She was named Leslie Fay Woman of the Year and concomitantly voted "One of the Most Beautiul Women in America" featured in "Vogue", "Harpers Bazaar", "Cosmopolitan" and "Working Woman".
She is the daughter of June Villarreal-- a Lady Commander of The Holy Sepulchre, a linguist, and former speechwriter for Egyptian foreign minister Fawzi-- and is the great great grand-daugther of the last Milanese consul of Czar Nicolas II.
Alessandra Gelmi is profiled in Who’s Who in American Women, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World, the chronicle of human achievement since 1899.
She is a founding member of Ave Maria University, a member of WETA's Presidents' Club, and a trustee of The Notre Dame Institute of Catechetics.
She is available for lectures, readings, and symposia.
Update:2012
Alessandra Gelmi recently interviewed the new Foreign Minister of Italy, Guilio Terzi di Sant'Agata, for The Epoch Times (Print and Web Editions) and concomitantly was invited to speak at the home of the President of the Dartmouth Club of Washington D.C. for Dartmouth alumni.
Gelmi's ficiton was published in "Amazing Graces An Anthlology of Washington Women Fiction Writers" published by Paycock Press ( a NY Times Editor's Choice publisher) Launch party was held at Politics and Prose in the nation's capital. Her work was recently included in Gargoyle 57, an international literary review. She is an Honor Roll member of the Dartmouth College Fund and is a current member of the Academy of American Poets.
Update: 2013-2014
Nominated for "I Am a Modern Woman" for "I Am Modern Magazine" : Profiled in June
Consulting Editor: "Light on Dark Water" by Steven Hayes, Dartmouth '66
Alessandra Gelmi is now referenced in the collected papers of authors James Dickey (archived at Emory University Library) and Norman Mailer (archived at the University of Texas, Austin, in the Castaneda Library named after her great uncle, Carlos Eduardo Castaneda, 1890-1958.)
Interview and poetry published in "The Worcester Review", Volume XXXIV
Interview published in POSHSEVEN Magazine
Featured in "The Diplomatic Pouch" and "The Washington Diplomat"/"Diplomatic Spotlight"
Featured in "Artists in the Afternoon" Series: Glover Park Village Community, fostering intergenerational relationships and aging in community.
Commissioned Poem for "Peabody Room Collection", Georgetown Library, District of Columbia
"The Alessandra Gelmi Television Special", Channel 10, Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area, focusses on forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in Asia, and the rise in black market commerce of said organs. Launch date June 19, 2014
PAX International Initiate: August 2014
Landmark World, 2014 Wisdom Course, Washington, D.C.
Membership: Academy for Future Science
Ordination, Priesthood, Sovereign Order of Melchizedek 2015, Sacrament of Holy Orders
DC Public Library Poetry Workshop Leader (Georgetown Branch) September 2015
Membership: Harvard Club of Washington, D.C. 2015
Second Address:
Dott. Alessandra Gelmi
Passaggio Cividini 4
Porta Nuova, 24122 Bergamo, Italia