ABOUT
Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli
Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli immigrated to Sudbury, Ontario, Canada with her family at three years of age. During her teaching career, she received four OECTA (Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association) Best Practice Awards for her unique strategies in early literacy and other initiatives. Rosanna is a professional member of the Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC), the Canadian Authors Association (CAA Toronto), the Association of Italian-Canadian Writers (AICW), and the Canadian Society of Children's Authors, Illustrators, and Performers (CANSCAIP). An alumna of the Humber School for Writers, she has been published in eighteen anthologies and journals. She lives in Sudbury as a settler on Robinson-Huron Treaty Territory, Territory of the Atikameksheng Anishnaabeg, where she is privileged to create and share her work. Rosanna has done readings also in Toronto, Sault Ste. Marie, Manitoulin Island, Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg, New York City, and Italy.
Rosanna’s novel La Brigantessa (Inanna Publications & Education, Inc., 2018) was awarded Gold for Historical Fiction in the 2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY Awards) and she received her gold medal at the IPPY Awards in New York City in May 2018. La Brigantessa was a finalist for the 2019 Canadian Authors Association Fred Kerner Book Award and the 2019 Northern Lit Award. It won a 2019 International Book Award for Best Cover Design, and The Miramichi Reader’s “The Very Best!” Book Award in 2019 for Best Cover Art (designed by Val Fullard). In June, 2019, Rosanna read at a CAIS (Canadian Society for Italian Studies) Conference in Orvieto, Italy. Since then, Rosanna has read at book clubs, both in person and online. In 2024, La Brigantessa received an Honourable Mention at the Hollywood Book Festival, for deserving greater recognition in the book and film industry.
Her children’s book Pumpkin Orange, Pumpkin Round, illustrated by award-winning Tara Anderson, was published by Pajama Press (September 2019), and reissued in a board book format in 2020. It was a 2020 Bank Street Best Book winner. Her second children’s book, Easter Morning, Easter Sun, was released in March 2021 by Pajama Press. Her fiction collection Pigeon Soup & Other Stories was released by Inanna Publications in June 2021.
Rosanna has five books published with Harlequin (2018, 2020, 2021). The sixth will be released in August, 2025.
In October 2019, Rosanna was one of the four authors featured at the Parry Sound Festival of Authors. She did a reading there from La Brigantessa. Among other projects, Rosanna edited the book Tales of a West-End Italian Boy by Nic Battigelli, released in 2019. In early 2020, Rosanna was guest author at a CFUW (Canadian Federation of University Women) meeting. During the pandemic, Rosanna has been guest author at online book meetings, as well as at online events by Sudbury Wordstock Literary Festival, Word Up Barrie, North Bay’s Conspiracy of Three, and Toronto’s Writers And Editors Network. She has also been revising a previous novel and working on a collection of creative non-fiction called Product of Italy, Made in Canada: An Immigrant's Love Letter to Food, Family, and Resilience, which will be released on October 18, 2025. She has also completed the sequel to La Brigantessa.
