Martha Cooley presents My Little Donkey

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About the book:

A collection of searching, curious, and surprising essays catalyzed by the author's move in her sixties to a small Italian village, exploring selfhood, coincidence, inheritance, and the impermanence of identity

In 2021, in her mid-sixties, Martha Cooley moved with her husband from the United States to Castiglione del Terziere, a village in northernmost Tuscany. Prompted by this relocation, the essays in My Little Donkey chronicle her encounters with people, animals, the past, and herself as she reckons with the fallout of a major life-change.

Following curiosity where it leads, Cooley delves into music and silence, the vagaries of history, the complexity of familial legacies, and the presence and power of animals in human lives. With its spirited examinations of uncanny coincidences and chance events, My Little Donkey’s varied essays offer the vivid pleasures of story combined with the provocations of a writer looking behind the curtain of appearances, intent on honest assessments of what she sees and feels. Whimsical yet at the same time intellectually and emotionally bold, these essays tackle the conundrum of time’s passage: how to adapt, pay attention, embrace contradiction, and enjoy the ride?

About the authors:

Martha Cooley is the author of three novels—The Archivist (a national bestseller published in a dozen foreign markets), Thirty-Three Swoons, and Buy Me Love—and the memoir Guesswork. Her short fiction, essays, and translations have appeared in numerous literary journals.

Rebecca Chace is the award-winning author of five books: Talking to the Wolf (novel); Leaving Rock Harbor (novel); Capture the Flag (novel), Chautauqua Summer (memoir); June Sparrow and The Million Dollar Penny (middle-grade). She adapted her first novel, Capture the Flag, for screen and television with director Lisanne Skyler (Best Screenplay Short Film, Nantucket Film Festival). She is a regular contributor to The New York Times, and her nonfiction essays have appeared in The Yale Review, LA Review of Books, Guernica, Lit Hub, The New England Review, and many other publications. Fellowships include Civitella Ranieri, MacDowell, Yaddo, Dora Maar House, American Academy in Rome (visiting artist), and others. She is a Faculty Associate at the Institute for Writing and Thinking, Bard College.

Martha Cooley photo credit: Walter Massari

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