Elisabetta Dami

File:Elisabetta Dami photo.jpg

Elisabetta Dami photo profile

Elisabetta Dami (Milan, 1958) is an Italian children’s books author who is most famous as the creator of the character Geronimo Stilton.

Elisabetta Dami
Born	Elisabetta Maria Dami 1958 Milan, Italy
Pen name	Geronimo Stilton
Occupation	Writer
Period	1922–present
Genre	Children's literature
Notable works	Geronimo Stilton
Website
www.elisabettadami.com

Biography

She is the daughter of publisher Piero Dami (who founded Dami editore in 1972). At the age of thirteen she started out in the publishing world as a proofreader for the family business and at nineteen she wrote her first short stories. As an adventure lover, she got her aircraft pilot and parachutist licences aged 20, and at 24 she travelled around the world on her own and completed a famous survival course at the Outward Bound School in Maine, in the United States. Some of Elisabetta’s other adventures include taking part in a rally in the Sahara desert and crossing Africa from north to south in an off-road vehicle; she raced the 100-km Sahara ultramarathon and ran two New York marathons (in 2002 and 2003). She was also adopted by two Native American tribes, including the Cherokee Wolf Clan.

The creation of Geronimo Stilton

Her experience as a volunteer working with sick children gave her the idea of writing adventure stories with a mouse called Geronimo Stilton as the protagonist. These stories went on to become a publishing sensation in Italy and internationally.

For a while I worked as a volunteer in a hospital, and it was there, almost by chance, that I invented Geronimo Stilton … It was at the time when Patch Adams taught the world that children need to laugh to get better. So I started to make up funny stories in which the protagonist was a clumsy mouse called Geronimo Stilton. He would get involved in all sorts of entertaining adventures, full of funny events and twists in the plot, that children found really compelling.

Since then Geronimo Stilton’s stories have been translated into 48 languages and have sold more than 130 million copies all over the world, with more than 32 million sold in Italy alone.

Charity work

In 2016 she founded Elisabetta Dami Onlus, an Italian non-profit association, to help children and protect the environment. Elisabetta also supports other non-profit organisations and associations with donations and creative projects to raise awareness about their activities and the issues they are involved in.

Elisabetta Dami's Forum Impulsa Speech in 2012

This is approximately what she said: Bon dia a tutto.

I would like to thank the prince and the princess of Asturias San Girona and IMPULSA Forum for inviting Geronimo Stilton and me here today. But I especially want to thank you all, you’re friends for being with us today, with all my heart.

Since many years, I do not attend public events, because just like Geronimo Stilton, I am a very reserved person, even a little bit shy. But I made an unique and special exception for IMPULSA Forum today, because today we’re talking about cooperation, and cooperation is the secret of the success of Geronimo Stilton.

But first of all, let me explain who is Geronimo Stilton. He’s a special mouse, and now we will discover why. Geronimo is a mouse who lives in Mouse Island, in a world that is very similar to ours. Geronimo Stilton is a business mouse, he’s the director of The Rodent’s Gazette, the most important newspaper in Mouse Island. In his publishing house, many mice work together successfully, because they cooperate. Children love Mouse Island, and they think it’s a special world where anything is possible, everything works well, because all these mice were differently one from the other, cooperate together on common projects.

Children believe that Geronimo Stilton is alive and this is why they write to him thousands and thousands and thousands of very sweet letters, like these ones. We answer to them all, and children believe he’s alive, and they ask me questions: ‘Dear Geronimo, how can I arrive to Mouse Island? Should I take a car, a train or a plane?’ because they believe that Mouse Island exists, and it is a real world.

Geronimo has many funny adventures all around the world, and he narrates his adventures in his books. What makes his books different, is that they convey positive values to children. These values are universal, this is why Geronimo is so successful around the world. These universal values are for example, respect for the beauty of nature, respect for elders, peace in the world, engagement, honesty, sincerity, and especially, cooperation, because Geronimo knows that if he cooperates, his family, his friends, his collabarators, any goal in life is easier to be reached.

The first example of cooperation, successful cooperation, is between Geronimo and the person who writes his books, me. I am Geronimo Stilton, or maybe we might say that Geronimo Stilton is me. The books are assigned by Geronimo, and since they believe that the mouse is alive, I never tell children that I write the books, because I respect their dreams. The dreams of children are the most precious treasure in the world, and they do not want to spoil this.

Geronimo and I started to dream together twelve years ago and since at the time, we sold more than 74 million copies, all around the world, in more than 40 countries. We can say that we have a long and successful story of cooperation and friendship, and we had a lot of fun together.

The most important thing for us, for me and the mouse, it is not fame. It is not success. It is not commercial and economical, it results even that all came to us, but it is that we made many, many, many children happy, reading our books, and we had a lot of fun cooperating together.

All around the world, there are also shows about Geronimo and his wonderful world. We have animation, we also have a musical.

(VIDEO ON GERONIMO STILTON ANIMATION AND MUSICAL IS BROADCAST)

Very often, children and even adults ask me about the ingredients of this very lucky recipe, and today, I’m going to share with you, dear friends, this lucky recipe. Number One: Everything I write comes from my very heart. I never think of myself as a person separate from my readers. When I write, I write for you, dear readers and I always try to connect my heart to your hearts, because I believe that anything done together has a different and special and better quality of energy.

Number Two: When I write, I am always happy, because I love what I do. And therefore, I write with joy. And anything done with joy always vibrates at a different level. When I write, my heart is singing.

Number Three: When I write Geronimo’s books, I am supported by a big, strong and loving team: the Stilton Team. This team is composed by many collabarators, who contributes with success that is absolutely unbelievable, even for us. We all feel that this is our success, and this is part of the secret, because we really cooperate together, this is what makes us so strong. So you can imagine artists, illustrators, graphics, publishers all around the world, printers, distributors, book sellers, all these people compose the Stilton team, and we cooperate in the miracle of this amazing commercial success.

And by the way, even this is a moment of economical crisis all around the world, Geronimo has the same kind of sales as before, and even had an increment of ten percent, because everything that is done with joy, works.

This is why I agreed to be here today. This is why I came. Because I know that I am an example of successful cooperation, and I also strongly believe that we all share the beauty, the responsibility to help the new generation, to build their future successfully and we have to share with the others when we know something important, something precious, something that works. This is why I really hope that my experience will help you.

What comes from the heart, with joy, with teamwork, always has the energy of success. I invite you to try because it really works, and I invite you especially to teach this concept to young people, to the new generations, because cooperation works better, even it is taught when you’re young.

Just like Geronimo Stilton, I am a simple, quiet and very normal person. And I am happy with my slippers on, in front of the fireplace with my cat, listening to good music, reading a good book and drinking a good cup of tea, but just like Geronimo Stilton, I have learnt that travelling around the world is good for me, because it’s the best way to find inspiration for new stories. I wrote more than 280 books, so I need inspiration but I always find it in my challenges, in my adventures. This is why I learnt to travel a lot, and I climbed Mount Killimanjaro, more than 6000 metres, and I had a pilot’s license, I ran a marathon in the Sahara Dessert, I ran the New York Marathon, I met many crazy things. This inspired me a lot.

While travelling around the world, I met friends who were very different from me. Friends who had different traditions, habits, even eat different food. Those friends taught me something very important, that diversity is the real secret for a strong and successful team. This is why now I have many different friends around the world and together we accomplish a lot, but we also have a lot of fun. And being here today, is part of these experiences.

And this is like for example you can see Mary Fisher, an American artist who created Abotaca. Abotaca is a project that helps the women of Zambia, teaching them to produce beautiful beady jewellery. Recently, I collabarated in a special Abotaca project, for young girls, teaching them a profession so that they can earn their living independently, and they can build a better and free future.

Just like me, Geronimo knows the profound values of diversity in a team. And when he leaves for one of his fantasy adventures, he always creates a team that is composed of friends very different from him, like dragons, elves, goblins, gnomes, fairies, and fantasic creatures. Each one is different from the others. Each friend has different skills, and offers to the team the loving gifts of his diversity. This is why the team works. And this is what makes any team powerful: many people cooperating together.

Before ending, I’m going to share something very personal with you: How Geronimo Stilton was born?

Many years ago, I discovered that I could not have children, and that was a very special moment for me, somehow it was also very painful, and I know all the women who are here with me today understand what I mean, either they have children, or they don’t have them.

And that was the moment when I started to volunteer in hospitals for children who were ill. And I started to tell them the story of a mouse called Geronimo Stilton. The stories were very funny, they had a lot of adventures and misadventures, and children loved a lot, especially the misadventures of the mouse were very funny. But they always asked me: ‘There is a happy ending, isn’t it?’

At that moment I realized that in fact the real question was they were asking me: ‘Will there be a happy ending to my story? Will I recover?’

And at that moment I realized that we all need a happy ending. We’ll need to believe that there is a happy ending to our lives. And that was moment when I started to publish the Geronimo Stilton books, whom had a commercial success that I have never imagined.

It took me some time also to realize that the thing that we all need in life is hope. I understood at that moment that those stories were somehow healing the children, and I was being healed too. That was a very successful story of cooperation, because thanks to that experience, I really understood one thing about me, that I was a mother, because I had millions of children around the world who are reading my books. And this made me very happy, but also makes happy all the children who read me. So it gained that there is an exchange of love and energy.

It is true that we all need a happy ending in our lives. We’ll need a dream, we’ll need hope, not only children. Let’s keep alive the light of hope, for ourselves, for our loved ones, for our children, for our grandchildren, for all the future generations, because this is the world needs, and because we all are one.

External links

• "Elisabetta Dami. Fòrum IMPULSA 2012" audio-video (4 July 2012) at youtube; vimeo
• Elisabetta Dami [1] (11 December 2010) at la Repubblica
• Elisabetta Dami at Library of Congress, with 7 library catalogue records
• Geronimo Stilton at Library of Congress, with 35 library catalogue records
• Thea Stilton at Library of Congress, with 5 library catalogue records