Luciana Cacciatore

Luciana Cacciatore was born in Salento. She studied foreign languages and literature—Italian, English, French and Spanish—in Pisa, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Barcelona. She currently works as an educator in Salento at the intermediate school level. Before starting her teaching career, she worked for over 10 years in the tourism industry. Between her studies and tourism work, she has travelled throughout much of the world—travels which not only increased her interest in other peoples’ cultures and ways of living, but also redefined her own place in the world. In her spare time, she tends the land she inherited from her grandfather and strives to preserve the heritage left to her by her ancestors. Her serendipitous encounter with two travelers from California, combined with her longtime friendship with co-authors Carlo and Lucia, has brought her two souls—that of the tree, she says, and that of the bird—together.