Discipline: Literature

Diana Cavallo

Discipline: Literature
Region: Philadelphia, PA
MacDowell Fellowships: 1960, 1967, 1972, 1973
Diana Cavallo (1931–2017) was a writer, essayist, and playwright. She attended the University of Pennsylvania and spent time in Florence, Italy as a Fulbright Scholar. Her first novel, A Bridge of Leaves (Atheneum Press, 1961), was written in Florence and while she was in residence at MacDowell. It drew inspiration from her Italian grandparents and her time as a psychiatric social worker. Her play Two Sisters won first prize in a contest sponsored by The Ethical Society of Philadelphia and was performed there to a large and appreciative audience. She published a nonfiction book, The Lower East Side: A Portrait in Time, in 1971. Cavallo also wrote many fictionalized essays about the Italian neighborhood in South Philadelphia where she grew up until her family moved to Upper Darby when she was a teenager. She performed these as monologues on many stages in the city, particularly at The Italian Society in South Philadelphia. She was a Fulbright Teaching Fellow at the University of Pisa in Italy before returning to teach at the University of Pennsylvania, where she taught from 1994–1998.

Studios

Mixter

Diana Cavallo worked in the Mixter studio.

Built in 1927–1930, the Florence Kilpatrick Mixter Studio was funded by its namesake and designed by the architect F. Winsor, Jr., who also designed MacDowell's original Savidge Library in 1925. Mixter Studio, solidly built of yellow and grey-hued granite, once had sweeping views of Pack Monadnock to the east. The lush forest has now grown…

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