Frances Mayes

Frances Mayes has always adored houses, and when she saw Bramasole, a neglected, 200-year-old Tuscan farmhouse nestled in five overgrown acres, it was love at first sight. That instant infatuation inspired several highly personal books about taking chances, living in Italy, loving and renovating an old Italian villa, the pleasures of food, books, wine, gardens, and the “voluptuousness of Italian life.” The first book in her Tuscan Trilogy was the phenomenal bestseller, Under the Tuscan Sun, which remained on the New York Times bestseller list for two and a half years and was later made into a popular film starring Diane Lane. The other books in the trilogy, Bella Tuscany and Every Day in Tuscany, were also international bestsellers. 

She collaborated with her husband, the poet Edward Mayes, on In Tuscany, with photographer Bob Krist and Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style from the Heart of Italy with photography by Steven Rothfeld. Her cookbooks are The Tuscan Sun Cookbook: Recipes from My Italian Kitchen called one of the "best Italian cookbooks of all time" by Forbes and Pasta Veloce: Irresistibly Fast Recipes from Under the Tuscan Sun co-written with Susan Wyler, both with photography by Steven Rothfeld.

Mayes’ widely acclaimed New York Times bestseller Under Magnolia, is a memoir about growing up in the South. She is also the author of A Place in the World: Finding the Meaning of Home, a lyrical and evocative collection of personal stories on the comforts of home. Her New York Times bestselling travel memoir was A Year in the World: Journeys of A Passionate Traveller. Her other books on travel are See You in the Piazza: Places to Discover in Italy, and Frances Mayes Always Italy: An Illustrated Grand Tour, written with Ondine Cohane which won the Gold for Best Travel Book by the North American Travel Journalists Association and was Gold Medal Winner of the SATWF’s Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition in the Guidebook category. Her travel newsletter on Substack, Proceed to the Route, is filled with her ventures out into the world, news from home, good advice, recipes, and links.

Her novels include Swan, a family saga and mystery, Women in Sunlight, now in preproduction as a film by Water’s End Productions, and most recently A Great Marriage which was one of People magazine's Best Books of August 2024.

As a poet and essayist her books include Sunday in Another Country, After Such Pleasures, The Arts of Fire, Hours, The Book of Summer, and Ex Voto. Her text, The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems, is widely used in college poetry classes. Her books are translated into more than fifty languages.

Formerly a professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University, where she directed The Poetry Center and chaired the Department of Creative Writing, Mayes now devotes herself full time to writing, and, currently, to another renovation of Bramasole. She and her husband divide their time between North Carolina and Tuscany. In 2025 she was awarded Italian citizenship in recognition of her contributions to Italian culture.

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