Kym L. Ragusa (born February 25, 1966) is an American writer and documentary filmmaker based in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

Early life and education

Ragusa was born in

Manhattan, New York Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, to an Italian-American father and an African-American mother. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...

; her maternal ancestors were brought to the United States as slaves. She spent much of her childhood living alternately with her maternal grandparents in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

and her paternal grandparents in

Maplewood, New Jersey Maplewood is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township is an inner-ring suburban bedroom community of New York City in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's populatio ...

. After attending public schools, Ragusa earned an M.A. in Media from the New School for Social Research. She also studied creative writing at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

, where she was a student of

Louise DeSalvo Louise A. DeSalvo (September 27, 1942 – October 31, 2018) was an American writer, editor, professor, and lecturer who lived in New Jersey. Much of her work focused on Italian-American culture, though she was also a renowned Virginia Woolf schola ...

Career

Ragusa directed two award-winning short documentary films, ''Passing'' (1995) and ''Fuori/Outside'' (1997). Her other films include ''Demarcations'', ''Threads of Memory'', and ''Remembering the Triangle Fire''. Her memoir, ''The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging'' (W. W. Norton & Co., 2006), was a finalist for the 2007

Hurston-Wright Legacy Award The Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards program honors Black writers in the United States and around the globe for literary achievement. Introduced in 2001, the Legacy Award was the first national award presented to Black writers by a national organizatio ...

for nonfiction, and has been well received by critics. An Italian-language edition, ''La pelle che ci separa'', was published in 2008. Her writing has also appeared in anthologies, such as ''The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture'' (2003), ''Personal Effects: Essays on Memoir, Teaching, and Culture in the Work of Louise DeSalvo'' (2014), and ''Are Italians White? How Race is Made in America'' (2012). Much of Ragusa's artistic work explores themes of racial identity and belonging. In the foreword to ''Olive Grrrls: Italian North American Women & The Search For Identity'' (2013), Ragusa describes her uneasiness with pat answers to the question, "What are you?" and concludes that "No identity is singular, clear-cut, fixed; each is situated in histories and in daily lives that are endlessly complex." Ragusa has taught Writing and Film Studies at

Eugene Lang College Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, commonly referred to as Lang, is the seminar-style, undergraduate, liberal arts college of The New School. It is located on-campus in Greenwich Village in New York City on West 11th Street off 6th Avenue. ...

and the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

Awards

* 1995: Juror's Prize, Women in the Director's Chair, for ''Passing'' * 1997: Best Video, South Bronx Film and Video Festival, for ''Fuori/Outside'' * 1999:

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

film fellowship * 2007:

finalist for ''The Skin Between Us''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ragusa, Kym Living people 1966 births 21st-century American women writers American writers of Italian descent African-American non-fiction writers American documentary film directors African-American film directors Writers from Brooklyn People from Maplewood, New Jersey People from Harlem The New School alumni Hunter College alumni Film directors from New York City Film directors from New Jersey American women documentary filmmakers 21st-century African-American women writers 21st-century African-American writers 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women American people of Italian descent

Early life and education

Career

Awards

References

Further reading

External links