A Conversation with Professor Marina DelVecchio, Author of Unsexed: Memoirs of a Prostitute’s Daughter

Marina DelVecchio, PhD, launched her memoir, Unsexed: Memoirs of a Prostitute’s Daughter after ten years of being unsexed in her marriage and getting divorced, because of trauma and mixed messages she received about sex for women. In this episode, Marina talks about writing her book to understand why she was so touch-averse, patriarchal effects on sexuality, and how trauma trickles into how we parent our children. "I clear tables when I talk about women's issues," Marina says, of her frankness on such subjects. Unsexed examines the role that sex plays in the life of one woman with two mothers who introduce her to polarized frameworks of female sexuality. Born in Greece to a violent prostitute and then adopted at age 8 by a cold and unloving virgin from New York, Marina inherits a sexual identity steeped in fear and shame—one that, as she grows older and becomes a wife and mother, trickles into her marriage and the parenting of her children. Without the tools needed to understand her complex mothers or to unpack the lessons they taught her, Marina relies on self-erasure to survive relationships that silence and define her—until she finally becomes fed up with those old patterns and begins to stand in her own power. A memoir that unearths the layered emotional and sexual lives of women and exemplifies the satisfaction that comes when they assert their voices and power, Unsexed speaks to millions of women who have different narratives but face similar struggles in reclaiming their voices, bodies and sexuality. Marina is a former high school English teacher with 20 years’ teaching experience in literature, creative and academic writing and research. She has acquired an MS in English and Secondary Education from Queens College in New York, thirty credits towards her Doctorate at St. John’s University in New York, specializing in Gender Studies, 19th and 20th Century American Literature, and Feminist Criticism, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Queens University in Charlotte. She has also completed a Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth and teaches writing, women’s studies, and literature as a full-time Professor at a community college in North Carolina. She has received several awards for her writing from The Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition (2011-2015), and her work has been published by The Huffington Post, The New Agenda, WE Magazine for Women and BlogHer. She has worked as a contributing book reviewer of women’s literature for Her Circle Ezine and as Assistant Editor of Poetry and Non-Fiction for QU Literary Magazine (2014-15). In print, her work has been published by Cengage Learning’s anthology on Media and Violence Against Women (2013) and She Writes’ collection of essays titled Three Minus One (2014). She was a finalist in the 2015 Tiferet Writing Contest, and her craft essay on writing immersion memoirs was published by The Tishman Review in June 2016. Her other book publications include Dear Jane (2019), The Professor’s Wife (2021) and The Virgin Chronicles (2022). Currently represented by the Keller Media Literary Agency for a nonfiction project related to music and female sexuality, Marina has established a strong online presence via her writing on empowering girls and women through education, positive female role models and writing as an act of resistance. Marina teaches college students women’s studies and literature through the lens of bibliotherapy, guiding her students to connect with literary heroes who write for power and self-assertion. She lives in North Carolina with her children and three feral cats.  Learn more about Marina and follow her: https://marinadelvecchio.com https://www.facebook.com/marinadelvecchio727 https://www.instagram.com/marina.delvecchio/

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