Anthinula Tori is a writer, children’s book author, filmmaker (sTORIworks), designer ( Jean Tori Design), and wine enthusiast.
Half Anglo-Scottish and half Italian, she has lived in Asia, UK, USA and all over Italy. Anthinula currently resides (and is probably cutting grass - hahaha) on a walnut tree farm in Umbria.
When the unusual choice for a family holiday is Vietnam during the cease fire back in the 1970s, and you’re three years old, and you remember climbing on stone temple elephants, eating giant frog legs and watching military tanks drive through the streets of Saigon after curfew, there are a few ways your creative mind might play out. Fortunately, I chose storytelling.
Half Italian and the other Anglo-Scottish, I grew up in South Korea and Hong Kong. Living in these vibrant cultures, alongside the adventurous family trips throughout Asia, there was always an abundance of story material.
Asia filled the senses, especially culinary, with kimchi, red bean popsicles and xiaolongbao, and summers back in Europe centered a lot around food too, watching my British grandparents make sausages in their butcher shop and rolling out pasta with my Italian grandmother.
Experiencing so many different cultures, food always seemed to be the most direct common denominator - an accessible element into understanding and participating. It also connects us and brings us together, which is why food, and occasionally wine, often feature in my stories.
After working and eating all over the world, I’m now living on a walnut tree farm in the countryside of Umbria. It’s more like a creativity farm, because it’s where my mother and artist, Jean Tori, used to paint, and where we collaborated on our unique children’s books. Now it’s a space for film projects and documentaries, design collaborations, installation exhibitions and my writing. Fortunately, the storytelling continues, and the food is still delicious.
