#fiction art Italy paranormal romance time travel

Stalking a 17th Century Genius

Gianlorenzo Bernini Sculpting in Clay I’m writing a story about a 17th century artist and a 21st century art historian meeting, and the big question is, what does he have to say to her, and what does she have to say to him? My main character has done her Master’s thesis on the sculptor/architect and meets him in person in St. Peter’s basilica, thanks to a magic time-shifting gold pen. Is she kind of his…

Continue reading

#fiction Italy Rome time travel

Back to Italy this morning

I’ve returned to working on my novel about Italy. Took a wonderful webinar from The Book Doctors, Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry, and it was so full of great tips for editing your novel, that I was itching to open the last draft. Their book, The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, really is a must-have. It’s on my Kindle. And the BEST PART: if you buy a copy, The Book Doctors will…

Continue reading

fathers Italy memoir essay rocket

Telecommunications and my dad

Digging back into the old memoir, Rocket Lessons (forthcoming from who-knows-where, who-knows-when) to rehab some of the chapters as short essays to submit here and there, I discovered one about my father’s biggest project, the launch of the world’s first telecommunications satellite, Relay I. As it turned out, it was by five months the world’s second telecommunications satellite, but as my father always liked to point out, “It’s still up there and Telstar died in…

Continue reading

Baroque Bernini Italy Renaissance

Happy birthday, Gianlorenzo Bernini!

I’m only a few days late but still in time to celebrate the birthday of one of the main characters of my novel and play (both in the works): Gianlorenzo Bernini, the genius of the Baroque, the tempestuous sculptor who they say shaped the face of Rome and who sculpted one of the most talked-about (even today) sculptures of a saint ever made. Bernini’s passionately gorgeous art transformed sculpture and created the style they now…

Continue reading