"30 Hot Conversation Lessons" is my seventh book, but it's the first e-book, and the first one to be self-published! The other six are published by Alphatest, an Italian publisher of 'study' books. Check them out if you're curious. The titles I wrote are: 'Inglese in pratica 1/2/3', 'Inglese in viaggio', and 'Inglese commerciale'. Needless to say, they'd make great Christmas presents for yourself or your teacher friends! (Don't worry, only the title is in Italian).
Writing books is only a small part of my work, though. Mostly it's teaching English to Italians, and managing and marketing a private language school, which pays the rent. How did I end up running my own school? Sheer desperation, really. I used to work at the British Council in Bologna, Italy, but they closed us down, so we started up on our own. The result is Madrelingua. That was in 2005.
Why TEFL/TESOL? I got into it first in 1991, during a recession which left me with few other opportunities. My first job was at a school called Kent English, in Ankara, Turkey. Then I worked teaching Japanese kids in a residential school in the UK. While there I did the RSA Dip.TEFLA, the older version of what is now the DELTA. Then it was off to be DOS at an IH school in Poland, after which I worked in various London schools, including a spell as a teacher trainer on a Trinity Cert. TESOL course. And then to Italy, where I've been ever since.