“When I write under different names, I can be a different person. So, if I got stuck on whatever I was writing as Katherine Mezzacappa, that was a bit more literary, then I could dive off into a romance, if you like, and be Kate Zarrelli, and that does feel a bit different.” Katherine Mezzacappa
In this episode, I’m joined by author Katherine Mezzacappa, the Irish-born, Tuscany-based novelist behind The Maiden of Florence and a wide-ranging body of work written under more than one name. We talk about Katherine’s long relationship with Italy, from her first trip to Florence as a child to the life she eventually built in Tuscany, and about the beauty, history, and cultural inheritance that shape her work. We also discuss her path to writing seriously later in life, and why her fiction so often returns to women and working people whose stories official history has ignored, distorted, or erased. Katherine shares the surprising ways books begin, how she researches the worlds she writes, and the unusual method she uses to understand her characters from the inside out. We also talk about discipline, time, artistic community, and what aspiring writers need to hear most: that there is no single right way to write a book, only the way that allows you to keep going.
Biography
Katherine Mezzacappa is an Irish author of mainly historical fiction, long resident in Carrara. Ten of her novels have been published under three different names. The Maiden of Florence (Fairlight, 2024, also available in Italian translation with Piemme) was shortlisted for the Historia Gold Crown award, 2025 and this month achieved first place in Kindle sales in the US in the Italian Historical Fiction category. Katherine is also a manuscript assessor for a London literary consultancy, lead organiser for this year’s Historical Novel Society’s conference in Maynooth, Co Kildare, and is an executive committee member of the Irish Writers Union. She’s also proud to be a member of the Florence Literary Society. Katherine holds degrees from East Anglia, Durham and Canterbury Christ Church universities.
Links
https://www.facebook.com/katherinemezzacappafiction
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-mezzacappa-09407815/
https://bsky.app/profile/katmezzacappa.bsky.social
https://www.instagram.com/katmezzacappa
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Podcast Producer: Andrew Niklas Curtis
Production Intern: Nicole Stevens
Recorded via Zoom, post-production Lorenzo Maiani, Faminore Sound Agency