i went to italy with my favorite author & 22 strangers 🍕🍷
Make some popcorn and collect your three beverages, it's time for a hot girl catchup.
That’s not even clickbait. A week ago, I got on a plane, flew to Naples without knowing a soul, and then traveled the Amalfi Coast with two dozen brand new writerly pals.
What a goddamn dream come true.
Bookish content/updates are down at the end, but we’re gonna take our sweet ass time on the way there, if that’s okay with you.
🍋 a week on the Amalfi Coast 🍋
So, yeah. A year ago on a whim, at an extremely shaky time in my life, I booked a TrovaTrip experience with author and podcaster and feminist linguist Amanda Montell. We spent a week touring Naples and the Amalfi Coast, and my only regret is that I didn’t think to book extra time on either end because holy shit was it hard to leave that lemony slice of paradise.
A sampling of highlights:
Underground tour of Naples that was built by ancient Greeks. I did not expect an underground tour to be so COOL.
A rainy morning spent walking the ruins of Pompei. So powerful. Oh my god.
Purchasing Elena Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend” in its original Italian, in the city she’s from (Naples), from a darling bookstore I just randomly wandered into.
A pizza-making class taught by a sexy Napolitano chef that did not speak English, and Amanda (and our tour guide) had to translate for us. 🍕
Walking around Sorrento and stumbling upon murals, street art, old churches, dozens and dozens of lemon groves, the most charming little cafes and ristorantes, and countless bustling vendor shops.
A field trip to the sparkling island of Capri, where I spent most of the day on my own just walking the streets and enjoying mental peace in the Italian sunshine.
The most magical & serendipitous meal with 10 of my new friends in a gorgeous restaurant hidden *inside* a lemon grove, and then finding a wine bar at the end of the night where the owner gave us the most unreal princess treatment (a custom wine “tasting” where he poured like a glass of each, and his mother in the kitchen crafted special pairing bites throughout, AND we found out that day was also his birthday). 🍷
Espresso and/or prosecco whenever I had the chance.
Hiking the Path of the Gods into Positano. It took like 5 hours and nearly 20,000 steps, but wow was it worth it. A once in a lifetime experience.
Being in the streets of Sorrento when Naples’ football team won the Series A championship, and the city exploded with what I can only describe as a spontaneous, joyful, chaotic parade. Street fireworks, Napoli-blue flags, vuvuzelas, motorcycles, colored flares. It was INSANE. I can’t believe I was there. FORZA NAPOLI 🎉
Seeing Mount Vesuvius up close and personal. The vents around the inside of the crater began to steam while we were standing there. So cool!
So many other things. I journaled EXTENSIVELY so as not to forget a single moment. I’m so grateful to have been there, with so many smart and interesting people to boot. 💖
having a giggle with literary dadaism as a creative writing exercise
Amanda Montell hosted a couple lil writing workshops sprinkled throughout the trip, when time between our many ~excursions~ allowed.
My favorite was the session she spoke about this wacky concept called Oulipo, which began as a group of French writers and mathematicians who defined the purpose of Oulipo as "the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy." There are plenty of constraints & exercises they use to craft these new structures/patterns, and we played with some of them in our workshop.
The one we did together as an exercise was some “Lipogram” practice, which involves writing something using only 25/26 letters. We excluded the most common letter in English: e. Similar to the French novel, Perec’s “A Void,” written entirely without the letter e, somehow (it was later translated into English, STILL without using the letter e).
Amanda gave us this prompt:
In 15 minutes, write a made up breakup letter without using e.
Here’s mine:
Good morning, shit stain,
You suck so much. Your bullshit has caught up to you, fart sniffing worm.
I thought our coupling days so quaint, until only this past Friday. How might it sit in your soul, to know this big wild mushroom cloud of doom looms now in our history? My joy has flown away with such mighty sins of your loins.
Ciao, dumbass. I will not think of you tomorrow.
“Sins of your loins?!” Who the hell am I? 😂
After time was up, we went around the group and read each of our dramatic creations out loud. I swear I’ve never laughed so hard, oh my god. What a delight of an afternoon.
Another Oulipo method that was used as an example was the N+7 technique. In whatever given work of prose or poetry, each noun is replaced with the seventh noun after it in the dictionary. We love playing with 7’s in this house.
During our workshop, Amanda shared Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” poem as an example (which was bizarre because I’d just attended a lecture from Sabaa Tahir not even a week prior on that exact poem, but that’s a whole other story). Now that I’m home, I wanted to try this out just for fun, and turned to a random poem in Morgan Harper Nichols’ STORYTELLER poetry collection (which is fantastic, and sells for $7 brand new).
Here’s the original poem:
For the one with high hopes for seasons to come:
Hear the wind as it howls around you
over the ridges and into the valley
where you stand in the drying weeds,
with a sense of new days coming.
See the setting sun
turning barren lands
into rows of endless yellow
that now has you thinking,
maybe the change of a season
is more than sorrow,
but a leap, a promise
for hope
tomorrow.
-Morgan Harper Nichols
Then I dusted off my custom-engraved, gold-foiled Scrabble Dictionary my grandmother gifted to me in high school (that’s right, be jealous), and got to +7-ing:
For the onset with high hopsacks for seawalls to come:
(For the one +7)Hear the winery as it howls around yucca
over the riffraff and into the vambrace
where yucca stand in the drying weevils,
with a sentry of new dearies coming.
See the setting sundae
turning barren languages
into royalties of endless yeti
that now has yucca thinking,
maybe the chaos of a seawall
is more than souffle,
but a lechery, a prop
for horizon
tonic.
Wayyy too much fun! It’s taking everything in me not to “translate” the rest of STORYTELLER into this delicious goofy soup. Also, if I had a pop grunge band, we’d 100% be called Endless Yeti. #1 single would be A Prop for Horizon Tonic. Album title: More than Souffle. TOO GOOD.
& now it’s time for the 💥 EARWORM OF THE DAYYYYY 💥
*AIR HORN GOES WILDDDD*
🎶Life’s so fun, life’s so fun…🎶
Not to be THAT person who just went to Europe, but. Wow.
I needed to be reminded: Life’s so fun.
Or rather, it can be fun. I think it’s supposed to be, more often than not. If we can get out of our own way and be present and notice/romanticize the small things (@me).
Mid-way through the trip, we took a ferry from Sorrento to the island of Capri, and then immediately hopped on a two-level speedboat to tour around Capri’s picturesque coastline. It was fucking magical.
At the halfway point, before turning around to return to port and continue our tour, we took a pause and blasted Silk Chiffon on the top deck of the boat, and literally had a dance party. It was maybe the most cliché moment of the trip, and also one of my top favorites. It’s making me tear up to write about it, and my chest is heavy with profound awe and gratitude that I got to be there. I wanted to soak up that moment like a sponge. I wish I could have bottled it to revisit on hard days; eau de dancing in the sunshine with likeminded strangers on a speedboat off the coast of Capri.
Don’t forget, don’t forget.
Life’s so fun, life’s so fun.
recent favorites & highlights
show:
I still haven’t watched anything since the last newsletter. Why do I even have this highlight??
I think this week I’m going to spend some time catching up on my YouTube watch later playlist, honestly. I’ve been missing that community engagement piece recently, and it makes me so happy and inspired to see the cool-ass videos my friends are producing.
music:
A longtime favorite artist of mine is Baths, who’s been producing vibey & chill surrealism electronica since the 2000’s. It’s niche, but trust me. Seaside Town in particular (#6 in the album below) is special to me because it samples several great quotes from Kiki’s Delivery Service (aka my all-time favorite movie), one of which I come back to quite often: “We each need to find our own inspiration; sometimes it’s not easy.” It’s one of those songs that has the power to inexplicably bring me tears and/or completely turn around my day. 🌊
game:
I’m still on my Stardew Valley BS!! I decided I’m going to marry Sebastian on this playthrough, and then later realized he’s literally an exact replica of Wes just in 8-bit Stardew form. Guess I have a type?
food:
I did my best to eat and savor my way through Italy. One silly highlight was my solo 🍦Gelato Crawl🍦 one night in Sorrento. We’d been served a truly gigantic authentic lunch in Nocelle pretty late in the day, so I knew I wouldn’t need much of a dinner. I decided I simply had not had enough Gelato on the trip, so I’d get it all done in one swoop & six scoops.
First, pistachio and lemon.
Second, strawberry and mango.
Third, almond and walnut (walmond?)
For dessert, a glass of Prosecco. 🥂
It was perfect. I’d do it again tomorrow.
bird:
One afternoon in Naples, a group of us sat down at a streetside café for wine and people-watching. Our server brought out some crackers and peanuts with the wine, and a minute later our table was swarmed with a few brave pigeons helping themselves to the peanuts in the middle of the table. We reached for our glasses and pushed away from the table, swatting at the birds to GTFO, but they were persistent. I had to physically push one away from the dish with the back of my phone before it took the hint. It was a SCENE. We kept bursting into fits of anxious giggles for a long time afterwards.
✨ BOOKISH UPDATES ✨
WE MADE IT!!
recent reading highlights:
I’ve been fully embracing the mood-reading energy the last couple weeks, easing up on the pressure and expectations I set so high for myself. It’s been lovely. I recommend it.
I do have a couple other books in the works to wrap up before I finish my Italy vlog, but these two I’ve recently finished, and I thoroughly enjoyed them both!
two recent reads, both 4 stars for me:
One Italian Summer, by Rebecca Serle
I listened to the entire audiobook on my flight from LA to Munich, on the way to Naples. What a VIBE. We follow our main character who has just lost her mother to cancer. They had planned a mother-daughter trip to Positano, a place her mother always reminisced about. She takes the trip alone instead to grapple with her grief.
Magical realism makes the story so special. I don’t want to say too much, but I thought it was so well done and now I’m hungry for more books with a similar feel.
The palpable Italian setting dripping with bittersweet nostalgia was the perfect backdrop to the story, and the perfect way to set the tone at the start of my trip. The story of this woman finding her way back to herself, alone in a beautiful place that her mother loved so deeply? Incredible. Loved it.
The Shadow of Perseus, by Claire Heywood
After reading and LOVING Claire Heywood’s Daughters of Sparta last year, she instantly became an instant-buy/instant-read author for me. Her feminist retellings of Greek myths just have the special sauce, you know?
For instance, The Shadow of Perseus is told from the perspectives of three women in Perseus’s life (similar to how Daughters of Sparta tells the story of the Trojan War from the perspectives of Helen of Sparta/Troy, and her sister Clytemnestra).
Danae, Andromeda, and Medusa each play a critical role in Perseus’s orbit. I struggled with Perseus as a character, but I know that’s the point. The women in his life teach him many lessons, and are definitely too patient with him, but I always love the nuance and raw humanness in Heywood’s retellings. Void of fantastical or magical/divine elements, she writes the events through more of a historical fiction lens, which helps to ground the story and puts the characters themselves at the center of their own story, rather than any canonical godly intervention.
upcoming liveshows:
Silly Goose Book Club (March read): Phaedra, by Laura Shepperson
Wednesday, May 10th, 6pst (liveshow link)
Silly Goose Book Club (April read): The Bandit Queens, by Parini Shroff
Thursday, May 11th, 6pst (liveshow link)
With Hannah from thepaperbackbruncher, and Jan Agaton
May Readers’ Happy Hour
Second week of May, weeknight after 5pst (playlist link)
upcoming projects:
Okay, humor me here. I knowwww I’ve been promising all kinds of vlog-y projects, and they are in the works. Pink cover girlbossification, nonfiction girlies, and women’s prize vlog are all still happening.
HOWEVER, I’d love if my newsletter cuties would help me prioritize upcoming projects. The winner would go up on my channel mid/late summer, most likely. The others will happen eventually as well, don’t worry.
Depending how this goes, I’d love to have SILLYVERSE subscribers become a more active part of my content planning. We’ll seeee!! 🤠
If you enjoyed reading this bad boi and want to chat about it, please feel welcome to leave a comment in the app, or reply to the email (it comes directly to me). You can always DM me on Instagram as well. <3
You can also share this post on social media, or forward the email to a friend that might enjoy it too.
happy happy May!! 🌻
Love ya, thanks for reading all the way through!
Until next time, silly gooses! Can’t wait to share all the content from Italy with you SO soon.
End-of-newsletter secret: my favorite souvenir from the trip is a hunk of black basalt (volcanic rock) carved into the cutest snail you’ve ever seen. I bought it from the shop at the trailhead to the Mount Vesuvius crater. Italian airport security barely let me through with it, lmao. Now she’s my lil desk buddy. I named her Suvi. 🐌🌋
Stay funky,
Noelle
my links:
YouTube // Instagram // Storygraph // Ko-Fi
Bookmarking this for the mems. What a wonderful newsletter new friend!