Una Dozzina: About a Dozen Times When Time Paused

(Run Time: 2:26)

From the author of the internationally acclaimed book club favorite, The Covert Buccaneer comes this luminous collection of slice-of-life vignettes that capture fleeting moments before they vanish — the small, human intervals that rarely announce their importance until memory claims them.

Written across years and places — from Italy to Chicago to the shifting neighborhoods of San Francisco — these brief pieces preserve ordinary life with uncommon attentiveness: an afternoon in a mischievous Fiat, commuters bound by tacit ritual, a house that disappeared without warning, a mother writing to children she worries will forget they were loved, a recipe rescued while no one was paying attention, and a city corner where children speak Italian. Each vignette stands alone while covertly conversing with the others, forming a mosaic of lived experience.

The collection resists agenda and argument. It doesn't explain itself or rush toward relevance. Instead, it invites readers into a series of remembered rooms — intimate spaces where time slows, attention sharpens, and the ordinary briefly becomes resplendent.

Una Dozzina rewards browsing, revisiting, and serendipity. Though the order of pieces is carefully curated, readers may open it anywhere and linger. It will speak to anyone who has loved a place that disappeared, a person they could not keep, or a moment only recognized once it had become memory.

Ideal for readers of literary nonfiction, flash prose, and contemplative essays — and for admirers of works such as From Scratch by Tembi Locke, Harper Lee's The Land of Sweer Forever, and the reflective lineage of writers like Natalia Ginzburg and Joan Didion. With occasional flashes of the compressed, observational clarity found in García Márquez’s shorter chronicles, this collection honors the unsung art of noticing and the enduring beauty, tragedy, and hushed magic of what passes.

S. Lucia Kanter St. Amour (Author) is a cross-genre author, attorney, law professor, and Italian language teacher whose work spans historical fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature, and feminist theory. A lifelong advocate for women, special needs children, and the displaced, she has served as a VP of UN Women and as a legal advisor on special education policy and practice in public schools.

Lucia blends humor, heritage, and heart in stories that center family, culture, and dubious multigenerational wisdom. She is the fifth of six generations of family in San Francisco where she is unreasonably enthusiastic for her North Beach neighborhood, its dogs, pizza and coffee.

Bettina Iantorno (Narrator) is trilingual, multicultural, and deeply attuned to the art of refined communication. She brings a rare blend of linguistic mastery, cultural fluency, and vocal elegance to every project.

Bettina was born and raised in the heart of San Francisco, a city shaped by many cultures, defined by resilience and surrounded by innovation and a vision of the future. Immersed in three cultures from an early age, she traveled extensively between Italy, Spain, and Mexico, developing not only fluency in Italian and Spanish, but also a deep, intuitive understanding of how language conveys identity, emotion, and sophistication.