Dee’s bio

Dyan Puma-Ciccone was born into a large Italian family, the youngest of six children. Growing up, there were family gatherings and Catholic festivals in Boston, and long afternoons riding horses and dirt bikes in the Massachusetts countryside.

She worked professionally as a web writer and editor in marketing and communications for high-tech companies and universities. “My first real job was in high tech, where I was probably the only person in the building with an English degree. I learned everything I needed to know about computers by asking a lot of dumb questions, then applied my love for writing to make technical things sound human,” she says now. Dyan earned a bachelor's degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Harvard University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University.

Born into a creative family of artists and musicians, Dyan found her medium in words. She started writing at a young age, keeping a diary. During her twenties, she journaled her adventures, traveling across Europe, including a month-long vacation in Bosnia and Italy with her mother in 1990—a journey that inspired a memoir in progress. She returned to the Balkans again at the onset of the Bosnian War, and once more in 1996 with her husband. Several drafts and rewrites later, her historical fiction novel SPLIT explores the human cost of ethnic conflict through the lens of those who lived it.

Dyan met her husband, Gary, an architect, at a local restaurant bar to see her friends’ band perform. They were married three years later. Since that time, they've renovated three homes, traveled abroad together, and are active in their church, sponsoring engaged couples in marriage preparation. In 2000, they adopted their first son from Ukraine. Their second son was born less than a year later.

Through the years, Dyan built her writing career. She has written human interest articles for digital and print publications. Currently, she teaches Communication at Southern New Hampshire University, and works as a freelance web writer, editor, and content consultant.

Her latest work, The Art of God: Sacred Paintings and Devotions in the Life of Artist Rose Marie Salvi Puma, is a tribute to her mother's legacy as an artist and woman of faith.

Dyan is a member of several writers groups. "As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand," Ernest Hemingway wrote—words that guide her approach to storytelling.