Writer
I love the solitary act of writing.
Poetry, memoir, journaling, commemorative books, training manuals, articles, songs.
Some have been published, some not yet, and some were written for the drawer.
Memoir
A Song for Bohemia
My recently completed memoir is looking for a Czech & American publisher.
Pages 385
SUMMARY
Dedicated to the life and legacy of Václav Havel and the people of my ancestral homeland, A Song for Bohemia is a historical memoir about living in Prague in the 1990s, and what led me there.
I was invited to Czechoslovakia by dissident-turned-president Václav Havel after I sent him a song of congratulations I wrote, inspired by the 1989 Velvet Revolution. This decade that ushered in a new millennium was a time of personal transformation in my life—a singer-turned-entrepreneur—and was a historic transition for the world: the Cold War ended, the Berlin Wall fell, Czechoslovakia and other Soviet-bloc countries were liberated from communism to democracy, from centralized economies to free markets, from oppression to freedom.
I was there, living and working. At the time, my Czech musician and business friends rarely spoke of the totalitarian domination they’d experienced. In my research for this book, they opened up, and Freedom, in the personal and collective sense, became the common theme.
Articles
Published in Journal of Singing November/December 2020 Volume 77, No. 2, pp. 267–271 Copyright © 2020.
National Association of Teachers of Singing
SUMMARY
I called her Janine, my friend and teacher. Madame Reiss lived in Paris and taught (to name only a few) Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, and me. When she passed away at the age of 99 in 2020, the world lost a musical legend and genuine grande dame. Janine was a master of classical songs, opera scores, many languages, and the human voice. I was privileged to work with her for over thirty years.
Books
100 ans: Centennial History of the Alliance Française d’Omaha (2017)
Copyright 2017 by Alliance Française Omaha
Co-authored with Holly Richmond and Jan Lund
Printed by Standard Printing Company, Omaha, NE
Book Design by DayCloud Studios,
Pages 163
SUMMARY
100 ans = One Hundred Years. This book commemorates and describes the founding and long history of the Omaha chapter of the Alliance Française. With the help of a group of Alliance members providing historical research, Holly Richmond and I wrote and organized the book’s text. Holly was the chief editor. Among other narratives, the book tells the story of each of the presidents who served the Alliance over the years.