y fiction writing reflects a lifetime of reading and teaching literature, in English, Italian, Latin, and French. My favorite classic authors include Vergil, Ariosto, Keats, Henry James, and Italo Calvino. My identity as a gay man, my spirituality, and a decades-long love for Italy inform my work. A deep interest in art history and classical music, and themes of romance and friendship, are also recurrent features.
My début novel, Dialogues on the Beach (BrickHouse Books, Baltimore; 2017), is inspired in part by Cesare Pavese’s La Spiaggia and Dialoghi con Leucò. The sequel, Spirit’s Tether (BrickHouse 2020), has a structure of telescoping chronology and flashbacks which a reader has described as “Calvino-esque,” a tribute to my love of Italo Calvino’s fiction. My new novel, The Boxer’s Mask, is set in contemporary Rome and follows very loosely the plot of The Tragic Muse by Henry James. The story allows me to explore the stereotypes and projections which many Americans bring to their encounters with Italy.
I grew up on the move because of my father’s career in business, science, and government. I was born in central Pennsylvania; we moved to Washington, D.C., and then to Paris for a two-year stay.
With a friend at Notre Dame, Paris – 1966.
My Family – Rome – 1965.
With My Parents on the Acropolis – 1965.
There my siblings and I attended French schools and we all shared the adventure of exploring Europe. I attended high school in Concord, Massachusetts, where I took leading roles in plays and musicals and hosted annual John Barrymore’s Birthday parties.
Dying as Billy Bigelow in Carousel – 1969.
With John Barrymore – 1983.
The Stonewall Riots started on my seventeenth birthday, and my young adulthood coincided with my coming-out in the heady early days of Gay Liberation. I hold a B.A. in Latin Classics from Wesleyan and a PhD in Italian from Yale. I also studied classical voice and was a semi-professional solo and choral singer in opera, recital, and oratorio. I taught Italian, Latin, and Global Humanities at Towson University for thirty-six years.
Teaching.
For twenty of those years, I also taught Italian diction and repertoire to voice students at Peabody Conservatory.
My academic career gave me a permanent home: I have loved Baltimore since moving here in 1984. I was very touched several years ago when a Baltimore native friend said I had earned the title “honorary Baltimorean,” about the best a Yankee like me can hope for. One lasting connection I have made is with a progressive, historic downtown Presbyterian church, where I have deepened and broadened my spiritual life and had my eyes opened, year by year, to social justice challenges in our society.
My Church.
Church – 2016.
I have been a bass section leader and soloist in the Choir, and served as an ordained elder, since the early 1990s.
Beginning with a study-abroad semester in Rome in 1973, Italy has been like a second home for me. I have traveled the country extensively for years, often leading student groups. Deep friendships and affectionate study have given me significant insights into a marvelous country, where nevertheless I always feel in many ways an outsider – and very American. Rome and Siena hold particularly dear places in my heart; Sicily, Campania, Florence, and the Veneto are also beloved stomping grounds.
Siena Mosaic – 2013.
Caffè Rivoire, Florence – 2006.
My scholarly publications (see Selected Non-Fiction) include two book-length translations and a number of articles on the Italian epic tradition, often focusing on gender and sexuality in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso and on the epic poem Il Meschino (“The Wretch”) by Tullia d’Aragona, believed to be the first work of book length written in Italian by a woman.
With Ludovico Ariosto – 2016.
