Lampe author wins awards for her writing

Blind Lampe author Ronda Del Boccio has won several awards for her writing. 

In November of 2022, Del Boccio added to her awards by winning several writing awards from the Ozarks Writers League and Yorkshire Publishing. Amongst the awards were the first place win for her lyrical poem, “Receiving Miracles Every Day”, which was written about how her rescue cat learned to receive love.

Del Boccio told Branson Tri-Lakes News she is always surprised when she gets acknowledgement for her poetry. 

“It’s odd because I end up winning something in poetry and it always shocks me, just because it’s not my main thing,” Del Boccio said. “You know, it just surprises me but this one I was the story about my rescue cat and her coming to learn how to receive love. It was really hard because when I first picked her up her heart was just pounding out of her chest and she didn’t want me to hold her. She hardly let me touch her. It took a while but now she demands love and she’s overall so much healthier than she was. Winning for a poem about her story was a really neat thing. I’m not trained in poetry. I didn’t take a lot of poetry classes. I don’t read that much poetry. So winning in poetry and having my poetry acknowledged is just shocking to me.”

Writing in different styles and genres is important to Del Boccio, who said diversity has helped her to not only express herself through the gift of words but has allowed her to share her passions with the world. She is the author of several books including The Story of Impact, Trust Your Heart: Building Relationships that Build Your Business, Mindset Masters: Achieve Anything, Anytime, Anywhere, The Peace Seed: Personal and Global Transformation through Storytelling, and the paranormal/urban fantasy novel They All Died Smiling, amongst others.

“There are a lot of people who would say pick a lane and stay in it,” Del Boccio said. “I’m like okay, that is fine but I am a variety girl, so it’s gonna be in my writing. There is nothing wrong with it. There’s always this body of wisdom that would say no, that you should be known in one area and you know. That’s not really my aim anymore. So, I’m just gonna do me and I like to do a variety.”

Del Boccio said writing what you are passionate about is the true artform of the written word.

“There’s some good mechanics of writing that are essentially universal. Like can you spell decently? Can you put sentences together in a pleasing manner? Some of that is mechanical,” Del Boccio said. “I talk to nonfiction writers about the art of storytelling all the time and how they’re using their senses and how involving different things like that can improve memoir and nonfiction just as much as they can, a fiction story. There are some things that crossover and of course there’s a lot of art to it no matter beyond the mechanics.”

Sharing inspirational stories and helping to make the world a better place is the driving force behind Del Biccio’s writing. 

“I can’t say writing is a full time job. It is definitely an avocation,” Del Boccio said. “Behind everything that I write there’s a sense of wanting to inspire and wanting to leave the world a little better than I found it. There are always some kind of helpful messages or something that can help you get your life a little better. That’s kind of behind everything that I do no matter which genre.”

Del Boccio said she is currently working on writing memoirs about her life and about her guide dogs including her current guide dog, a golden retriever. 

“I just think writing memoirs has really become a thing for me. I started doing them for contests initially and now it’s become a thing that I am putting together,” Del Boccio said. “One of my ongoing projects is a book of memoir short stories in a compilation style. They’re about my various guide dogs and I’m on my fourth one. Two of them I trained myself so some of the stories will be about that. As well as various things about these dogs who have been so much a big part of my life. That’s one of my projects. I have found writing memoirs makes me want to do more of them. And so that’s something I never would have thought if it had not been for contests. My enjoyment of writing memoirs has come from that.”

Del Boccio is also trying her hand at writing a children’s story about her current guide dog.

“I’m also now working on a children’s book about my Labrador, who has a stubby tail. I think she will be a perfect subject for children’s books,” Del Boccio said. “The lessons that she can teach children will be amazing. She’s so different. And there are some people who would not have taken her because she has a short tail. She was not what some want in a lab. But she is so cute and special and wonderful. She is so amazing and she can wag her tail faster than anyone. I usually have two or three projects going because my brain is really active. So that just appeals to me, to not only do one thing. Now my new thing is this children’s book, which I’ve never done before. It’s kind of fun to branch out on something new.”

Del Boccio is an award-winning author, photographer, artist, and speaker. Her short stories, poems, and articles have appeared in over two dozen anthologies across five continents. She has authored and co-authored a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction. Although she is “legally blind,” she says she’s “illegally sighted.” Del Boccio said she loves sharing her life and her optimism through her books. 

“I will say good writing, good storytelling, whether it is fiction, nonfiction, memoir or poetry, good writing involves as many of the senses as possible. So to describe a flower as yellow, okay, not super interesting. To say something about the fragrance which tingles your nose or that the smells remind you of bitter lemons, that makes it much more alive than just seeing a yellow flower bobbing on the breeze,” Del Boccio said. “Anything that will bring the senses into something is really helpful in writing. I know because I don’t see very well. I see some but not very well. When I’m writing, I imagine something in my mind and I try to convey that to readers using senses. I can’t honestly say that it has much to do with blindness. I think a lot of it has to do with good craft to make it come alive for the reader. If you’re reading a book which engages your senses, maybe then you start to kind of notice and be a little bit more mindful and aware of the world around you.”

Del Boccio has several books which can be found on Amazon through her author page at www.amazon.com/stores/author/B002BWVWP2/allbooks.