Greg Grieco (author) received a BA in English and a minor in physics from Notre Dame University. He eventually pursued an MFA in Film and Theater at the University of Minnesota. In the early 1970s, he was an active member of Chicago's Kartemquin Films. Passionate for equality, heworked with non-profit organizations in Tucson, Washington, D.C., Binghamton, and Ann Arbor. Sidonie Smith (editor) is the Lorna G. Goodison Distinguished University Professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. She and Greg have been together since the spring of 1973. She writes about how this book came to be: "In 2002 Greg came close to finishing this memoir of his grandfather Canio Grieco. Then life intruded, as Greg lived with dementia, a deterioration that has unfolded across many years, taking with it the stories he tells so powerfully in this memoir. So the time had clearly come for me to edit his book into a final shape and publish his story of his beloved grandfather."