Mary Jo Bona is the author of By the Breath of Their Mouths: Narratives of Resistance in Italian America, Claiming a Tradition: Italian American Women Writers, editor of The Voices We Carry: Recent Italian American Women's Fiction and co-editor of Multiethnic Literature and Canon Debates. She was guest editor of MELUS (Multiethnic Literature of the United States) on Italian American literature. Bona received a stipendiary award and entrance into the Academy of Teacher Scholars at Stony Brook, Dr. Bona teaches both literature and cultural courses for European Languages, English and Women's and Gender Studies. Such courses include Italian American and African American Women Writers, Italian Americans and Ethnic Relations, Images of Women in Italian American Culture and Italian American Film. She served as president of AIHA, the American Italian Historical Association and the advisory committee of NIAF, the National Italian American Foundation. Professor Bona serves as an officer of MELUS, the association for the study of multiethnic literature of the United States. Professor Bona's scholarly interests are inclusive of Italian American literature and culture, and multiethnic and women's literature.