Veronica Guido

Why re-work the Italian greats, if their work has remained beloved for centuries?

I, like many, am a lover of the classics both Italian and Greek. Dante, Ovid, Virgil, Homer (who I even have a tattoo in honour of). I am a lover of classic art as well. Da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo. The lists could go on.

I am half Italian. My father is from Calabria, the most southern part of the sunny Peninsula, next to the island of Sicily. I was raised in Italian culture and language. My name hails from the religion and history of the once Greek outpost in the South of the original Latin geography, where upwards of 10 Empires once claimed supremacy. My mother is of Indigenous ancestry, and her teachings of the natural world have heavily influenced the way I see the world, and how I write about it.

It is no wonder, then, that such inspirations have found their way into my writing. Not only am I writing the stories of women found in the great poems of Italian literature, but I am exploring themes found in the religions and societies of their times that often brought more harm, oppression, and violence than they ever did good. Sin. Lust. Vices. War. All ingredients to the downfall of so many women, often at the driving hands of powerful men.

I am on a mission to rewrite the stories of history and myth’s women and girls who we only know because of the violence men in their lives directed at them, written through the pens and quills of men who never knew them. While their stories often end in their downfalls and deaths, I hope to give beauty and joy to the lives they would have lived, despite the harm around them.

Follow along on my mission. You can subscribe to my website and newsletter, and follow me on social media: @veronicasmuses on Instagram and TikTok.

And please reach out to me! Do you have questions? Wish to collaborate? Want to chat about my projects? Interested in the rights to my work? You can email me at veronicaguidowriter@gmail.com