Dear Readers,

First, thank you for being here with me at Prayers & Piazzas! I launched this site twelve years ago as a place to share writings on the two most important things in my life: my family (prayers) and my love of all things Italian (piazzas). In that time, the site has attracted readers from more than 96 countries (tante grazie a tutti!!) and features more than 200 articles on Italian history, culture and travel. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for being here!

But after launching Prayers & Piazzas, the site quickly morphed into focusing solely on Italian content, and I have long needed a new home for my personal essays. And that is why I’m writing to you today.

Separate of this post here, subscribers to Prayers & Piazzas will receive an email from me and my new home for personal essays, Letters from Along the Way, at Substack.

While Prayers & Piazzas will continue to feature Italian content, the personal essays at Letters from Along the Way are about things that most put a stitch in my heart: long term melancholy over losing my dad, the constant pursuit of happiness and gratitude, the struggle of still trying to figure things out even as an empty nester. (Isn’t wisdom supposed to come along with age?) As a current subscriber here, you have been connected to this platform as well.

My goal with Letters from Along the Way is to provide a digital home for my personal essays, to publish one new essay a month, and to grow my readership and build a community of like-minded readers. I thank you for supporting this growth, and I encourage you to forward either site to another person who would be interested in my creative work.

Your subscription at P&P remains unchanged, and, although my new content at Prayers & Piazzas is limited to a few posts a year, access to the library of 200+ articles is available to you whenever you’d like to take a digital trip to Italy!

I love having you here with me at Prayers & Piazzas, and I welcome your support at Substack as I continue to grow as an essayist. Of course, if the content at either site is no longer relevant to you and your interests, I completely understand, and you can unsubscribe at any time. But I sure do hope you’ll stay. I’m grateful for the support you’ve given me all along the way.

Warmly,

Stacy