Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli is an Italian science fiction and thriller author.

She has lived in Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy) since 1993, earning a degree in biology and working as independent author, scientific and literary translator, educator and science communicator. In the past she also worked as researcher, tutor and professor’s assistant in the field of ecology at “Dipartimento di Biologia Animale ed Ecologia” of the University of Cagliari.

As a cinema addict, she started by writing screenplays and fan fictions inspired by the movies.

She has written original fiction since 2009.

Between 2012-2013 she wrote and published a hard science fiction series set on Mars and titled “Deserto rosso”.

The whole “Deserto rosso” series, which includes four books, was also published as omnibus in December 2013 (ebook and paperback) and hit No. 1 on the Italian Kindle Store in November 2014.

“Deserto rosso” was published in English, with the title “Red Desert”, between 2014 and 2015.

The first book in the series is “Red Desert - Point of No Return”; the second is “Red Desert - People of Mars”; the third is “Red Desert - Invisible Enemy”; and the final book is “Red Desert - Back Home”.

She also authored three crime thrillers in the Detective Eric Shaw trilogy - “Il mentore” (2014), “Sindrome” (2016), and “Oltre il limite” (2017) -, an action thriller titled “Affinità d’intenti” (2015), five more science fiction novels - “L’isola di Gaia” (2014), “Per caso” (2015), “Ophir. Codice vivente” (2016), “Sirius. In caduta libera” (2018), and “Nave stellare Aurora” (2020) - and a non-fiction book titled “Self-publishing lab. Il mestiere dell’autoeditore” (2020).

“Il mentore” was first published in English by AmazonCrossing with the title “The Mentor” in 2015 and then republished in 2022.

“Affinità d’intenti” was published in English with the title “Kindred Intentions” in 2016.

All her books have been Amazon bestsellers in Italy so far. “The Mentor” was an Amazon bestseller in USA, UK, Australia, and Canada in 2015-2016.

She is also a podcaster at FantascientifiCast, an Italian podcast about science fiction, a member of Mars Initiative and of the International Thriller Writers Organization.

She is often a guest both in Italy and abroad during book fairs, including Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino (Turin Book Fair), Frankfurter Buchmesse (Frankfurt Book Fair) and Più Libri Più Liberi (Rome Book Fair), local publishing events, university conventions as well as classes (University of Insubria), where she gives speeches or conducts workshops about self-publishing and genre fiction writing.

As a science fiction and Star Wars fan, she is known in the Italian online community by her nickname, Anakina.