Ringing out 2024 with my favorite stories!
You are what you write. Or do they say that?
I find myself physically unable to compile a list of my favorite stories of the year without immediately issuing a disclaimer: I know it’s self-promotional! I know it’s self-indulgent!
The act of writing, after all, is inherently self-indulgent. What makes any of us think we have something to say? The only way I have successfully dealt with this internal dilemma is not to answer the question affirmatively but to ignore it altogether. I’m not sure whether I have something to say, whether my work, in essence, matters, but I know that it matters to me. I suppose, at the end of the day, that that has to be enough.
So in the spirit of embracing this idea of “enough,” I’m sharing my favorite journalistic pieces from 2024, although perhaps my biggest accomplishment this year did not actually come in the form of journalism. I have officially—as of just days ago!—completed a first draft of my book project, an essayistic memoir tentatively titled, “Treatise on Quarter-Life Loneliness.” The set of 12 essays looks at what it means to uproot the life you thought you knew in your late 20s and asks some of the same questions as this newsletter. What does it mean to be Italian? What does it mean to be a foreigner living in a different culture? What does it mean to learn a language, to feel constantly uncertain, to divert so drastically from the path you once imagined that what came before no longer seems viable? (Trust me, I also burn with shame to share this publicly, but I have been advised that it’s important to Put Your Work Out There.) Piecing this project together has frequently forced me to reconcile with the still-deeply-ingrained American capitalist mindset that says every action must have an equal and opposite reaction (OK, that’s actually Newton’s third law). But working on a creative project with no guarantee of economic gain or prestige, written largely in isolation and with my own deadlines, has certainly challenged what I thought I knew about myself.
This year, I lived a few other highlights I couldn’t have previously imagined: I was asked to speak on burnout in local news at the Independent Newspaper Group’s fall meeting in Dallas, I won an in-depth reporting award for my feature on Sarasota’s changing political and social dynamics, I passed my C1 Italian exam (!) and had multiple stories included on best-of-year lists for Italy Segreta and Sarasota Magazine. Rebranding this newsletter as a space for more personal musings (here. are. some. favorites!) has undoubtedly been a bright spot. Below are some of my favorite pieces from this unforgettable year, listed in chronological order.
Is Sarasota changing for good?, Sarasota Magazine, January 2024—I have long been curious about the shifting nature of my Florida hometown, a tropical enclave that manages to evade succinct definition. Since the first election of Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s steep turn right, Sarasota underwent its own transition demographically—if not also socially. I aimed to document in some small way what that looked like on the ground.
Behind the glitz and glamor: the real lives of Italy’s nobility, Italy Segreta, January 2024—I initially wanted to open this piece with a brief synopsis of Henry James’ “The Golden Bowl” (first James reference: one point!), which centers on the marriage between an Italian noble who has fallen from wealth and the American heiress who promises to restore him to that former state. We ended up quoting instead from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s “Il Gattopardo” (if you have not read the short story “La sirena,” I am begging you to do so!), which is probably a more accurate look at Italian nobility, but I think the point from James still stands. Being born into a noble family in Italy today is much more about carrying a name and not necessarily material wealth.
Is Italy’s infrastructure laying a track for the country’s future?, Italy Segreta, March 2024—When asked to report on Italy’s infrastructure, I might have set out to write a personal essay—it feels like so much of my daily life depends on it. But the post-WWII history of the country’s infrastructure, and the United States’ financial involvement in it (ever heard of the Marshall Plan?), has, in many ways, informed the regional—and global—inequities that still exist today.
Inside New College of Florida’s radical transformation, Sarasota Magazine, May 2024—A sleepy little public honors college in Sarasota, New College, suddenly burst across the national scene when DeSantis decided to overhaul its Board of Trustees and turn it into a breeding ground for young conservatives. After one full year of the new New College, my feature looked at how life on campus had really changed.
Q&A: HBO Max’s new ‘Girls on the Bus’ set out to show a cool, fun side of journalism, Poynter, May 2024—I never counted myself in “The West Wing”/“The Newsroom” camp, though who among us can claim to not be moved by Aaron Sorkin’s epic inspirational speeches. But I was somehow struck by HBO Max’s spring release, “The Girls on the Bus,” co-created by Amy Chozick, who covered Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign for The New York Times. I talked to Chozick about how the show portrays a modernized media environment (for example, one of the campaign trail followers is loosely described as an influencer) and what it means to be a female political reporter.
Rome’s talking statues have served as sites of dissent for centuries, Smithsonian Magazine, May 2024—Tacking what essentially equates to a modern-day Post-it Note on a statue may seem like the most analog of ways to perform political resistance. But the Roman statue mounted just shy of Piazza Navona, Pasquino, became a site of protest during the Renaissance. Eventually, Pasquino was one of six “talking statues” scattered throughout the city—they even wrote facetious notes to each other. Walk by these statues today, and you may still see a note decrying more recent political figures, like Silvio Berlusconi or Donald Trump.
Meteoropatia: Why Italians’ sensitivity to weather is actually the right way to live, Italy Segreta, June 2024—When I first moved to Italy, I couldn’t get over the sheer number of rules: never leave your house with wet hair, make sure you wear a scarf in the cold, sudden changes in weather will definitely make you sick. But after two years living here, I have now internalized all of this, coming around to the Italians’ sensitivity to weather instead of resenting it.
Government suppression of protests in US history, from Occupy Wall Street to George Floyd, Teen Vogue, June 2024—The Bill of Rights may have enshrined an American’s ability to assemble, but that doesn’t mean those rights have necessarily been upheld in recent history. For Teen Vogue, I looked at examples of protests in the last 20 years that were suppressed by government entities, like Occupy Wall Street and the summer of Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd.
What will get Americans interested in international news?, Poynter, July 2024—The answer may surprise you. I covered a Global Press report that surveyed American readers on what they were looking for in international news coverage. The response was what we all may hope—more reporting from journalists based in and rooted in the communities they cover.
Sarasota’s SEE Alliance is working to mobilize Florida’s young voters, Sarasota Magazine, August 2024—In 2022, I profiled Sarasota high school graduate Zander Moricz, when he was already making big strides in the activist scene, known for his viral valedictorian speech after Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, his organizing of a statewide walkout in response and his eventual naming as a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit against the legislation. By 2024, Moricz had taken time away from Harvard to try and politically mobilize Florida’s youth around, surprisingly, School Boards.
Overtourism in Spain leads to mass tourists in Barcelona, Mallorca, Teen Vogue, August 2024—Photos of tourists being sprayed with water guns this summer on the streets of Barcelona were practically the images “heard” around the world. For Teen Vogue, I talked to one of the organizers with the Assemblea de Barris pel Decreixement Turístic, the citizen group that put together the protest (though not the water guns), on their goals and what the future might look like.
How Lithuanian singer Popa is transforming Italian pop, Italy Segreta, August 2024—I have loved singer-songwriter Popa since her soft “Tocco di Lusso” first came up on my Spotify. I was entranced by her elegant “sciura milanese” aesthetic, her candor, her foreign eye towards Italian culture. This job is occasionally literal wish-fulfillment: I identify someone I want to interrogate and then, well, I do it. In this case, the ensuing Q&A resulted in a fascinating meditation on creative inspiration, assimilating to Italian life and the meta-language of Popa’s songs.
Echoes of empire and war: the Italy-Kefalonia link, Italy Segreta, September 2024—I had often wondered about the connection between Italy and Kefalonia, a Greek island in the Ionian Sea—every time I came to visit my cousin there, I heard the lilting sounds of Italian being spoken and noticed the language on various menus. The historical link is actually much more entrenched, culminating in the infamous WWII massacre of the Italians stationed on the island perpetrated by the Germans that were told to kill them all. I interviewed one Italian woman whose father first aided and then was aided by a Greek family—she went back years later to reform the connection. Our interview continues to stay with me.
To divine the future, the ancients relied on these chance-based fortune-telling tools, Smithsonian Magazine, October 2024—If you’re anything like me, you likely consult your horoscope or your Magic 8-Ball at least once a week. (Whoops, did I reveal yet another embarrassing fact?!) Luckily, I’m not alone. Even the ancients had their own methodical strategy through the Sortes Astrampsychi, a numbers- and questions-based system that gave askers answers to a set of pre-stipulated questions on their future, from their marital status to their safe travels.
Everything you need to know about parmigiano reggiano, Italy Segreta, October 2024— I thought I knew everything there was to know about parmigiano reggiano, that is, by eating it. (Kidding!) In probably my most fun reporting trip of the year, I traveled to Parma and got to tour a caseificio, watching the process of the “twins being born” and the “true cathedrals of Parma.” But I also delved into the economic business of parmigiano, the controversy of Italian-sounding products and the cheese’s history.
How a youth-focused experiment queued up The Washington Post to cover an unprecedented election, Poynter, November 2024—The U.S. presidential election took a surprising turn this summer when incumbent Joe Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in his place. All of a sudden, it was the “brat summer,” a “coconut tree summer”—we were witnessing in real time the memeification of politics. The Washington Post was perhaps uniquely prepared to cover this moment. They had, serendipitously, been building their youth-focused politics team for some time. I talked to staff and profiled the team’s efforts to attract younger readers (and viewers) to their work.
Here’s to 2025 and thanks, as always, for reading!