Trieste — The idea for this historical novel (working title “Amedeo”) grew from the unsatisfactory answers to questions I posed several years ago to my father. I wanted to know why his father Umberto and uncle Amedeo became estranged in the mid-1920s, when they were both around 30, and never spoke to each other again. [...]
Mark Nassutti
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Meeting Boris Pahor
Trieste — I met Slovenian-Italian author Boris Pahor Saturday morning. At 99, Pahor projects an intense intelligence and displays a level of energy that many 60-year-olds would envy. This passionate story-teller and educator has dedicated his professional life to preventing the repetition of some of the terrible episodes of European history he has lived through [...]
Excerpt: Ada’s Book Stall
I read this excerpt from my novel-in-progress at April’s EDGE Salon at Vermillion, of which I am a co-curator.
Death on Via dei Giuliani
Borgo San Giacomo, Trieste — I am sleeping less than 100 yards from where my great-grandmother Maria Cescutti Nassutti died on June 10, 1944. She was 81. On that day, a brilliant late spring day, a wave of B-24 Liberators, P-51 Mustangs and P-38 Lightnings of the US Army’s 15th Air Force attacked the city’s [...]
Back to Trieste
Thanks to a grant from Artist Trust, I will be going back to Trieste in May. My goal is to use my time there to complete a second draft of my historical novel “Amedeo.” I’ll use the time away as an on-location writing retreat, using the place as daily inspiration for the story. “Amedeo” is [...]
Hemingway, Dickens, Lewis and James
I got tired of reading “how to write a whatever” books and decided to spend some time with great fiction. Among Hemingway’s short stories, I’d never read “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” but now understand why it’s a favorite. And I know at least one woman who could have stood in Margot’s shoes [...]
The Radesky March, The Dead, and Zeno’s Conscience
In my recent reading, I’ve been focusing on novels related to or set in Trieste. Joseph Roth’s “The Radesky March” provides a rich portrait of the historical context of Trieste’s emergence into the 20th century. Focused primarily on the eastern border of Austria, it actually mentions a character from Trieste. If you’ve never heard the [...]
Another November with Amedeo
On October 30, 2010, my dear friend and fellow writing group member Tina Hoggatt gave me a nudge in the ribs to try NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month. 32 days later, I had a 50,000-word first draft of a novel based loosely on the lives of my paternal grandfather, Umberto, and his brother, Amedeo. [...]
Another Writer’s Digest award
I feel very lucky to have won a second award from Writer’s Digest. In 2010, my personal essay “The Decision Tree” won third prize in the annual Writer’s Digest writing competition. In the fall of 2011, another essay titled “Telling Him” won “honorable mention.” Separately, the essay “Telling Him” was a finalist in the Pacific [...]
Thank you, Artist Trust
Earlier this fall I found out I won a grant from Artist Trust. Wow! I won $1,500 to fund continuing research on my historical novel. I will use the funds to help pay the expenses of doing another research trip to Trieste. Not sure when I’ll go, maybe May 2012. The Artist Trust program is [...]