“Reading Marian Calabro’s work is like watching a documentary unfold.” — The Book Report
Zenger Media summarized my book style as “serious history written in uncomplicated sentences,” and the Boston Globe honored The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party with these words: “Truth is indeed as spellbinding as fiction… [Calabro’s] research is meticulous and the telling, almost conversational in tone, is riveting.”
Poetry & Essays
Here’s a partial list of Marian Calabro’s broadcasts and publications, with links where available.
- Brushfire (University of Nevada): Mangia Bianco
- Italian Americana (University of Illinois): Anatomy Lesson
- Kelsey Review: Smoking Cessation: A Meditation in 20 Marlboros (Pushcart Prize nominee)
- The Metuchen Times: A Random Walk on Park Avenue with William Carlos Williams and a yearlong series on New Jersey museums
- National Public Radio: Dumb and Brave (audio and text), I Love the Lincoln Tunnel (audio and text)
- The New York Times: Kamala/Camelot
- NJ English Association Journal: Rememory and Shake Hands with the Muse
- NY-underscore: When the Snow Fell Up
- Pennsylvania English: They Did It Because
- Peregrine: Bones and Thoughts After Scattering My Late Husband’s Ashes
- Platform Review: But I Want to Carry the Boulder
- Red Wheelbarrow Poets annual anthologies: Baby (Pushcart Prize nominee) and poems in each issue from Volume 1 onward
- The Smart Set (Drexel University): Magritte’s 3.5-Room Apartment
Plays
Marian Calabro studied playwriting with Betty Comtois, Stuart Spencer, and Jenny Lyn Bader. Her short plays have been produced at these community theaters:
- Mile Square Theater in Hoboken (four plays in the 7th and 8th Annual New Jersey One-Minute Play Festivals)
- Luna Stage in West Orange (“The First Woman President” in a Civic Playwriting evening and “Try Cry Dry Fly” in a pandemic evening)
- Radburn Players in Fair Lawn ( “Testa Dura” and “The Fake Book,” which won back-to-back Best New Work awards)
- Cabrini Repertory Theater in Manhattan (“The Fake Book” opened the Venus Theatre Festival)
Books for Young Adults
The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party
Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin (hardcover)
ISBN 0-395-86610-3
An ALA Notable Book and multiple award winner (California Library Association, Virginia Library Association, New York Public Library). “Eerie and mesmerizing. Readers of all ages can transport themselves back to one of the darkest ordeals in American history.”—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Great Courtroom Lawyers: Fighting the Cases that Made History
Facts On File (hardcover)
ISBN 0-8160-3323-4
Biographical essays of Belva Lockwood, Clarence Darrow, Robert H. Jackson. Thurgood Marshall, John W. Davis, F. Lee Bailey, William Kuntzler, Sarah Weddington, and Linda Fairstein. “Heroic yet realistic profiles. The writing is clear and the explanations of legal concepts are nicely handled.”—ALA Booklist
Zap! A Brief History of Television
Macmillan/Four Winds Press (hardcover)
ISBN 0-02-716242-7
An overview of TV from its invention through the launch of the cable era. “Refreshingly readable.”—Library Journal
Operation Grizzly Bear
Macmillan/Four Winds Press (hardcover)
ISBN 0-02-716241-9
Describes the thirteen-year-study of grizzly bears done by John and Frank Craighead in Yellowstone National Park. “An involving synthesis of bear lore and field narrative.”—ALA Booklist
Anthology
Heart So Open, Soul So Wide: Tributes to Pat Schneider
Countless writers around the world have been transformed by the work of Pat Schneider and the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) method of writing that she pioneered. Edited by Marian Calabro, this anthology contains poems, essays, and stories by dozens of contributors, vividly describing how Pat and her legacy touched so many lives.