Dear Mr. Diamataris,

This is Dannis Koromilas. We briefly met in the reception area of your HQ on October 22nd, 2018, where I was delivering a copy of Greece Year Zero, when Penelope Karageorge wrote a very elegant and insightful review of my film. I was turning 50 that weekend and returned to NYC to retrace my steps of film school and my first novel, East Rockaway Station, which the Ethnikos Kyrikas reviewed in the spring of 1993.

I wanted to let you know that I have been inspired by your editorials over the last few years, and wanted to thank you for the courageous tone and thoughtfulness you have shared to the Diaspora regarding the descending trajectory of the U.S. political reality. It has been reassuring, but often dire, but ultimately a fortifying series of messages from Astoria, and for that I thank you immensely. I hope once the vaccine is tested, and logistics work in the U.S. and Canada's favor, I will be able to return to NY, as I still have family and friends there; I lived in Queens and Manhattan for six years in the 90's up until November 2000.

Actually, I left for home in Toronto weeks after the Bush/Gore election. But back then, there was more truth and character involved in American politics, if I may say. Regardless, I just wanted to say hello and share with you that your prose does in fact reach across the East River, and heads north to Canada, where the sons and daughters of Greek immigrants from the 1950's and 60's are still robustly active and aware of conditions and threats to the motherland. It is comforting to read your commentary in my email box whenever it appears. For that, thank you a hundred times, Antonis. I hope in 2021 we can meet for a discussion, and possibly an interview for one of my documentaries. You strike me as someone that I should capture on camera in my future endeavors. 

Dannis Koromilas

Toronto, Canada