Press Release
Contact: Mike Maggio 703-930-5214
mikemaggio@mikemaggio.net
For Immediate Release – November 1, 2024
Acclaimed DC-based author Mike Maggio is set to launch his new gothic novel, Woman in the Abbey, in February 2025. Published by Vine Leaves Press, the story is set in an ancient crumbling abbey occupied by an unearthly being, a mysterious old woman and the ghosts of those whose lives have been lost to its secrets throughout the centuries.
Woman in the Abbey has garnered praise for its fidelity to the gothic tradition. Norah Vawter, DC-based author and editor, states that the story is “an old-school gothic novel packed with horror, romance, and beautifully overwrought emotion.” Elizabeth Bruce, writer and theater producer and author of Universally Adored & Other One Dollar Stories, says that Woman in the Abbey `is a “go-to novel for aficionados of the underworld visited upon a crumbling abbey filled with the tortures of the damned.“ And Edward Belfar, author of the award-winning novel A Very Innocent Man, says that “Mike Maggio’s Woman in the Abbey delivers everything that a fan of gothic fiction could want—a crumbling, haunted abbey, an endangered heroine, supernatural intervention, unrelenting suspense. It will have you guessing till the end.”
Originally from New York City, Mike Maggio settled in Herndon, Virginia afte0r moving to Los Angeles and then traveling the world in search of adventure. He is the author or 11 books, including poetry, novels and short stories. A retired English professor who has taught at USC and Northern Virginia Community College, he has dedicated his life to the arts with an emphasis on promoting up-and-coming writers and artists. His ground-breaking collaborative work, cloudism, was produced at the now-defunct Soundry in Vienna, Virginia and was later performed at Woolly Mammoth and Capital Fringe. The success of cloudism led to other collaborations with poets, artists, actors and musicians including Music for Mummies, Springtime in Winter (reviewed in the Washington Post), Peace and Identity (with Antonella Manganelli) and a bilingual production called La Guerra è Pace\La Guerra e Pace which was performed with an international cast in Naples, Italy.
In 2022, his poetry collection, Let’s Call It Paradise, won the International Book Award for Contemporary Poetry. His fiction, poetry and book reviews have appeared in The Montserrat Review, Pleiades, Apalachee Quarterly, The Northern Virginia Review, The L.A. Weekly, The Washington CityPaper, Beltway Quarterly and many others. He writes for Washington independent Review of Books and is an associate editor at Potomac Review. His web site is www.mikemaggio.net.
For an electronic Advanced Reader Copy or more information or to arrange an interview/reading/’discussion, please contact the author at mikemaggio@mikemaggio.net or 703-930-5214.
Publication date: February 4, 2025
Genre: Gothic
Paperback: ISBN: 978-3-98832-129-9
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