Cathy Fiorello, Author

Cathy Fiorello
Author
Al Capone Had a Lovely Mother

Cathy grew up in Brooklyn, New York and has a BA from Hunter College, New York, in English Writing with a minor in French. She has taken post graduate writing workshops at Cornell, Vassar, NYU and the University of Wisconsin.

After graduating from college, Cathy embarked on her writing career working for book publishers and magazines doing promotional writing and editing. She met her husband, an artist, while working at Parents Magazine and soon moved to the suburbs of NYC to raise a family. After taking 10 years off, she resumed her career writing advertising, publicity releases and had a column in Scholastic Magazine.

Cathy describes her move to San Francisco as “a new beginning” and somewhat of a culture shock after living in the New York area for all of her previous life. Wasting no time settling into her new home, she joined a book club, got a job at a local book store and began taking writing courses at the Osher Life Long Learning Institute (OLLI) in SF. She credits her writing coach as being an inspiration and mentor in getting her to focus on a writing goal: a family history. Al Capone Had A Lovely Mother is a collection of short stories about her life in three cities; New York, Paris and San Francisco with the title coming from one of these stories.

Cathy says the most difficult part of writing is time. “You cannot put off the rest of your life. Also you are concerned about how your book will be perceived. The most enjoyable aspects of writing this book have been learning about writing and publishing a book, meeting new people and getting feedback about the book.”

In her free time Cathy loves reading current fiction, cooking, trying new restaurants and spending time in Paris. She also writes for the Bon Jour Paris Newsletter and the Barbary Coast Newsletter (BCN).