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John had a rare kindness you don’t often find today—generosity given freely, expecting nothing but your company in return. It’s a kindness we need more of in the world.
I met John late in his literary career and early in mine, shortly before the release of my debut novel in 2019. He patiently answered my questions about book launches, blurbs, and reviews, and shared a lifetime of hard-earned wisdom about the writing life. He even arranged a reading in Des Moines, Iowa, and offered to host me at his home. The pandemic had other plans.
When the world reopened, John organized a panel of writers at the long-postponed Italian American Studies Association Symposium in Lucca, Italy. I’ll forever picture John in the stunning Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, presiding over a table of younger authors who were only there, together, thanks to him.
Who does all that? A man like John Domini.
Marco Rafalà
Marco Rafalà is a first-generation Sicilian American novelist and writer for tabletop role-playing games. He earned his MFA in Fiction from The New School and was a co-curator of the long-running Guerrilla Lit Reading Series in New York City. Born in Middletown, Connecticut, he now lives in Melilli, Sicily. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review, Literary Hub, and Italian America magazine. His debut novel, How Fires End, was a 2020 Connecticut Book Awards finalist and honorable mention and won the 2021 Italian American Studies Association Book Award.