book The Shoemaker's Wife is the fictional account of the lives of her own grandparents after emigrating to America from Italy in the early 20th century. Regularly on The New York Times Bestseller List, critics have noted Trigiani's ability to "create distinctive voices for each of her characters." Millions of copies of Trigiani's books are in print in the United States and published in 36 countries around the world. Overlapping themes include self-perception, social identity, the universal immigrant story, personal loss, working class life, and contemporary social and environmental issues. Since 2012, Adriana Trigiani Tours, and AT Escapes, have offered travel tours to Italy, Scotland, Spain and Gibraltar inspired by the novels of Adriana Trigiani. During the 1990s, Trigiani wrote and directed an award-winning documentary Queen of The Big Time (1996), the story of her father's hometown of Roseto, Pennsylvania, shown in film festivals in London and Hong Kong, co-produced Green Chimneys, and later contributed to PBS documentary The Italian Americans. In 2014, Trigiani directed the major motion picture Big Stone Gap (film), a romantic comedy film adaptation of her namesake bestselling novel, produced by Donna Gigliotti for Altar Identity Studios, a subsidiary of Media Society. Big Stone Gap (film) is a story of family secrets and self-discovery in an Appalachian coal-mining town of the late 1970s. The award-winning ensemble cast includes Ashley Judd, Whoopi Goldberg, Jane Krakowski, Jenna Elfman, and Patrick Wilson. Released on October 9, 2015 by Picturehouse (company), Trigiani's narrative directorial debut arrived nearly 30 years after the sale of her first screenplay, Three to Get Married, produced by Kate Benton in 1986. Opening the Virginia Film Festival, Big Stone Gap (film) was ranked among the top 250 grossing women directed films of 2014. Media appearances Trigiani and her work have regularly been featured on NBC's Today Show. She was profiled on CBS Sunday Morning, appeared on The View, Good Day NY with Rosanna Scotto and Lori Stokes, and is heard regularly on NPR around the country. Trigiani has lectured at New York University and the New School for Social Research, has been a commencement speaker and received honorary degrees from Emory & Henry College (2018), Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana (2002), The University of Virginia at Wise (2001), and The University of New Haven, Connecticut (2005, 2016). She is host of the Library of Virginia Literary Awards (11 years), was host of the Poets and