An Italophile since the age of nineteen when she studied painting at Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, Dorah Blume has published short fiction and nonfiction in newspapers, magazines, and literary journals and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for “Hunger for Learning.” Considering herself a late bloomer, she expanded her artistic reach from the visual realm to the written word in her forties with an MFA in creative writing from Emerson, and has navigated between the two arts ever since. As a certified Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) facilitator, she has led  writing workshops for adults in Greater Boston, as well as in Tuscany. Very much in the tradition of an illuminated manuscript, many tiny black and white illustrations created by the author are sprinkled throughout Botticelli's Muse.