Mary Lou Sanelli -Compelling Writer, Inspirational Speaker and Dynamic Performer!
If you want to see a performance of a lifetime, book Mary Lou and you will be mesmerized and inspired beyond words.
Mary Lou’s pure energy and contagious enthusiasm flows through every word she speaks! You will feel as you are part of the story. Mary Lou Sanelli author of seven books with her latest title being: Among Friends has earned a solid reputation as a performer of the written word through a steady commitment to writing and through twenty years of successful public readings, speaking engagements, talks, and performances. As the writer/speaker says, “When I’m on the podium or stage, I feel completely free. It’s the place where I can be myself, be real and where I can give all my best energy.”
Mary Lou Sanelli_Speaker Snapshot
Testimonials:
“Such great stage awareness! Sanelli has impeccable timing in front of an audience, the best I’ve seen.” — Charles Duncan, Pacific Northwest Theater Director.
Sanelli is the author of seven books with her latest title being: Among Friends. Her recent essays have appeared on the OP-ED page of the Seattle Times and, as well as in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine. She works as a regular columnist for Seattle’s City Living magazine and is heard, periodically, on National Public Radio. She presents her staged reading of her book of the same name, The Immigrant’s Table (made possible, in part, by a grant from Artist Trust), throughout the country.
“Sanelli’s readings,” says Jessica Gurry, director of Starbuck’s Lunchtime Bookclub Events, “are highly engaging, accessible, and very generous. Her personable delivery is incredibly satisfying!” Indeed, Sanelli’s presentations have broad appeal. To quote Diane Green of Soroptimist International, “Mary Lou is by far the best speaker our organization has ever had!”
SANELLI’S TALKS:
Mothers and Daughters
This is a presentation about mothers and daughters, the life cycle, the mother/daughter evolutionary process that lasts your lifetime. This dynamic has wiggled it’s way into so much of what I write. Reading from this work is the most fun. I look out into the audience and the women are nodding their heads, wiping their eyes, smiling. They know what I mean. If I didn’t know they knew, I would have stopped writing long ago.
“There is still lots of work to do, apparently: learning to exchange our appreciation of each other instead of all the silly, useless gifts we buy one another to fill in the gaps of what we don’t know how to say, for one.”
Northwest Reading & Talk
Mary Lou Sanelli has a personable and striking presence in her writings. Throughout her career—eight titles, regular newspaper and magazine columns, and numerous radio commentaries both on local community radio as well as NPR — she brings a sharp eye and sophisticated wit to issues specific to the Northwest.
Sanelli shows, in story after commentary, just what place means to her: the people, the landscape, the gardens, the cafes, and, yes, the rain. And then there’s the harbors and the ferryboat she routinely travels across Puget Sound: This sound, too, serves to inspire and uplift. There are the people who live by the water, the friends and acquaintances, her encounters as she walks the beach, visits the boatyard, watches the sunset from the city pier, or attends a wake in honor of one of the Olympic Peninsula’s old-timers, all of which intensify her love of the Northwest. You’ll come away from her presentation with a deep appreciation of this corner of America and, quite likely, with a longing to know your own city and neighbors a little better than you do now.
“I especially like her struggle to understand her adopted city. As an East Coast Italian girl plunked down in white bread, PC Seattle she has the capacity to see ourselves as others see us.” —Knute Berger, former editor The Seattle Weekly.
Among Friends: A Memoir (2009)
An intelligent voice. An illuminating book. Sanelli is unsparing as she explores the subject of friendship in women’s lives. This is a book of self-discovery…dauntless, smart, funny, beautifully written. Perfect for the book club or any group of women willing to delve into the the hodgepodge of emotions common to anyone who decides to befriend another.
Falling Awake: A Collection of Essays (2007)
This talk is for the savvy women’s bookclub or any group that wants to look at life’s tug-of-wars like those between age and time, male and female, war and peace, place and belonging.
Falling Awake chronologically compiles Sanelli’s inquisitive, savvy, and humorous essays from her print and radio columns. Mary Lou Sanelli brings a sharp eye and sophisticated wit not only to the sometimes disheartening, sometimes encouraging aspects of our current politics and culture, but also to issues specific to her home city of Seattle, political relations, women’s issues, family dynamics, the intricacies of a writer’s life, what can go wrong at a dinner party—all are mulled over in this intelligently engaging collection that is a life-affirming journey in essays, a testimonial to the agelong process of questioning the status quo in order to find one’s honesty.
The Immigrant’s Table (2002, Second Printing 2005)
This is a Literary Feast. And by far Sanelli’s most popular and sought after performance, especially for fundraising organizations. This talk/performance has been presented everywhere, from the dinner table to the large theater, winery, and auditorium.
“An unusual & delightful book” —Publisher’s Weekly
This staged reading dramatically and poetically tells a story of immigration, cultural adjustment and weaving Old and New Worlds together into a rich fabric of memoir. Sanelli’s staged reading from her book, The Immigrant’s Table, includes poetry, storytelling, Italian food & wine: all the elements she so enthusiastically writes about in her story of coming of age first generation American, born to parents from Italy. Sanelli introduces her audience to her family in the most Italian of settings: around a table. And in introducing her family, she also reveals those long-held family recipes for a great meal as well as those for a lively family
Women in the Garden (2001, Second Printing 2006)
This program is perfect for the Garden Club or Garden Tour Venue.
Women in the Garden lights on a winning combination: cultivating the soil and renewing the language. The gardener’s routine, like that of the poet, sharpens observation and fosters the contemplative spirit. Though the book’s focus is in the garden, the situations are varied and as much outside the individual’s control as the elements. Wind, rain, and sun may help or hinder growth, but the key to success in both gardening and writing is a ready receptivity, something Sanelli brings to the ordinary happenings of each day.
Small Talk (2008)
Small Talk is a combination of speaking, dance, poetry, comedy and video. It’s a “reading in motion.” When the author saw the cover painting by Lois Silver, Girlfriends, she was captured by the easy intimacy these two women share. Soon after, she set out to compile a collection of work that captures those innermost connections between people—those brief conversations, those small talks, that make us whole.
Inspired by the intimate conversations of women, her performance expands the reach of the written word with video and dance, and a dramatic reading by the multi-talented Sanelli, whose engaging and dynamic stage presence stresses performance as strongly as literature. Sanelli’s readings win an audience with poignant insights and gentle self-effacing humor.
Mainstage_Media_Mary Lou Sanelli
Recent and Upcoming Venues
Skagit River Poetry Festival: The Immigrant’s Table
The Seattle Book Fest: The Immigrant’s Table
The Tenement Museum: New York City: The Immigrant’s Table
The Orcas Performing Arts Center: The Immigrant’s Table
University of Washington in the Allen Library: The Immigrant’s Table
Honolulu Academy of Arts: Art in a Thousand Words or Less: Small Talk
Whidbey Island Writer’s Conference: The Immigrant’s Table
The Sonoma Arts Council, Sonoma, CA: The Immigrant’s Table
Centrum Foundation Salon: Port Townsend, Washington: Small Talk
Soroptimist International: The Immigrant’s Table
San Francisco Italian Cultural Society: The Immigrant’s Table
Bumbershoot Arts Festival, Seattle: The Immigrant’s Table
Arts West Theater, Seattle: The Immigrant’s Table
The Market Theater, Seattle: The Immigrant’s Table
Bainbridge Performing Arts: The Immigrant’s Table
Vashon Island Performing Arts Center: The Immigrant’s Table
