Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli was born in Italy and immigrated to Canada with her family at three years of age. Rosanna started teaching children from Kindergarten to Grade 8 in both the English and French Immersion sectors in 1981, and has four provincial Best Practice Teaching Awards in recognition of her early literacy strategies and other initiatives. An alumna of the Humber School for Writers, her fiction has appeared in a dozen Canadian anthologies, including Mamma Mia: Good Italian Girls Talk Back (2004) and A Second Coming: Canadian Migration Fiction (2016). Since retiring from teaching in June 2015, Rosanna is pursuing her literary goals full-time. La Brigantessa is her debut novel. She lives in Sudbury, Ontario.