Daniela Gioseffi - Career

Career

A peace and social justice activist, Gioseffi began her career as a Civil Rights worker and journalist for WSLA-TV in Selma, Alabama in 1961 during the era of the Freedom Riders and Sit-in demonstrations for integration of African Americans into American social institutions and schools. Gioseffi was graduated from Montclair State University in New Jersey with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English, 1963 and awarded a scholarship for academic excellence and acting ability by The National Players to The Catholic University of America where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in World Drama, 1977—and attended with such notables as Susan Sarandon, Academy Award winning actress, and Michael Christopher, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright. Gioseffi's first writings were for the stage for which she won an award from The New York State Council for the Arts, funded by The National Endowment for the Arts for her poem-plays Care of the Body and The Sea Hag in the Cave of Sleep in 1971 produced Off Broadway in New York City. They are both feminist in theme. Prior to that she played in classical roles, Shakespeare, Congreve, Molière, with the National Players’ Touring Repertory Company out of Washington, D.C. (1964–66.) In 1977. She won a second award grant funded by The New York State Council for the Arts, of The National Endowment for the Arts, for poems contained in her first collection of poetry, Eggs in the Lake, published by Boa Editions, Ltd. The book was prefaced with an introduction by the accomplished poet, John Logan. Subsequently, Gioseffi edited On Prejudice; A Global Perspective (Anchor/Doubleday: NY, 1993) a book of world literature that was widely used in various universities as a multicultural text for tolerance teaching. It was awarded a Plougshares Peace Foundation grant as was Women on War. Both compendiums were presented at The United Nations On Prejudice; A Global Perspective, was translated into Japanese and published in Tokyo where it was also used in colleges and universities to teach tolerance against all forms of xenophobia and mono-culturalism.

Gioseffi has published four more collections of poetry, two novels, and a volume of short fiction. Blood Autumn: Autunno di sangue, a bilingual edition of new and selected poems, translated into Italian by five Italian poets and professors of Italian Language and Literature: Elisa Biagini, Luigi Bonaffini, Ned Condini, Luigi Fontanella, and Irene Marchegiani by VIA Folios/ Bordighera Press of The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of The City University of New York.. She was a featured speaker at The First International Women's Book Fair in Barceloma, and at book fairs in Miami, Madrid, Venice, London, and New York City. She served as a poet/consultant to the Poets-in-Public Service program, sponsored by The New York State Council for the Arts, fulfilling residences in Public Schools, Prisons, Senior Centers and Colleges from 1972 to 1986, for which she received a Partner in Education Award from The Board of Education of the City of New York. Before retiring from teaching in 1962, she taught at Brooklyn College, Pace University, New York University’s Publishing Institute, and The Manhattan's College of Visual Arts, and has received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Education from The Association of Italian American Educators, 2003 .