Rita Ciresi


Rita Ciresi is an American short story writer and novelist. She is the author of three novels that address the Italian-American experience.

Early life and career

Ciresi was born in New Haven, Connecticut, a city which serves as the backdrop for most of her fiction. She attended Penn State University, and graduated with an M.F.A.
Ciresi is the author of several novels, short stories, and pieces of flash fiction that have appeared in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, South Carolina Review, California Quarterly, and Prairie Schooner. She has also had anthologies published by Penguin, Purdue University Press, and Feminist Press. She has written romantic comedies, such as Love on Longboat Key, under the pen name of Meg West. Her fiction has been translated or optioned for translation in German, Dutch, Greek, Polish, and Bulgarian. Ciresi is well regarded for her writing style, and on her novel Pink Slip, she is appreciated for her ability to mix the tragic and the comic aspects of love in a hilarious fashion.
Ciresi has received support from the state arts council of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida. She has been in residence at the American Academy in Rome, Hawthornden International Writers' Retreat, Sozopol Fiction Seminars, Martha's Vineyard Writers Residency, Virginia Center for the Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Santa Fe Art Institute, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. She has written the first and final drafts of most of her work at the Ragdale Foundation.
Ciresi has served as a fiction editor of 2 Bridges Review, an annual published by New York City College of Technology. She currently rests as a retired faculty of the University of South Florida, where she was a professor emerita. Ciresi served as director of M.F.A. theses that resulted in publication and worked alongside former students.

Collections and Novels

Mother Rocket Blue Italian Pink Slip Sometimes I Dream in Italian Remind Me Again Why I Married You Bring Back My Body to Me
  • ''Second Wife''

Meg West's Romantic Comedies

Love on Longboat Key Love on Lido Key
  • ''Love on the Links ''

Awards