Under the Tuscan Sun was Frances Mayes’s first book about Italy. Previously, she published six books of poetry and a popular college textbook on reading and writing poetry. Her Italian memoirs Bella Tuscany and Every Day in Tuscany followed Under the Tuscan Sun, along with In Tuscany, Bringing Tuscany Home, and The Tuscan Sun Cookbook. She has also written the travel narrative A Year in the World, the novel Swan, and a southern memoir, Under Magnolia. Her most recent novel, Women in Sunlight, takes place in Italy.
Frances and her poet husband, Edward Mayes, live at Bramasole in Cortona, Tuscany, where it all began, and on a farm outside Hillsborough, North Carolina.