The Church of Santa Croce, Florence, Italy

Camilla writes:

"The church of Santa Croce is behind me. To one side of it is the legendary Scuola del Cuoio, a leather school and shop where the urge to empty my bank account buying everything was almost irrresistible. I got away with buying a baby soft leather cover for my husband’s agenda that didn’t break the bank."

Sicilian Good Fish Salad: A Recipe for 4

From Camilla Trinchieri:

Since I’m going to Sicily, I’m including the recipe for a salad that I ate for lunch in the town of at Villa Armerina (famous for a it’s Roman mosaics) many years ago.

Sicilian Good Fish Salad For 4 servings

1 19 oz. can of cannellini (navy) beans
1 15 oz. can of corn kernels
1 heart of celery sliced very thin--about two cups
1 bunch scallions sliced--green part included
1/2 red pepper diced very small--for color
3 hearts of palm sliced (optional)
1 1-inch fresh tuna steak
or two cans of water-packed light meat tuna
4 large basil leaves

Dressing:
1 1/2 tbsps. balsamic vinegar or 1 tbsp. lemon juice
4 tbsps. extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 clove minced garlic

Drain the beans and the corn and out in a serving bowl.

Add the vegetables.

If using tuna steak, brush it with oil and sear it on a very hot skillet three minutes per side. Let cool, slice and add to bowl.

If using canned tuna, drain and add.

In a small bowl mix salt, pepper and garlic with lemon juice or vinegar.

Add olive oil.

Whip together well, pour into serving bowl and gently mix all the ingredients.

Serve at room temperature with hearty bread and chilled white wine.

Buon appetito and ciao for now.

"Finding Alice" is Finding A Way

Camilla Trinchieri writes about her manuscript Finding Alice, truly a labor of devotion:

The main reason for my long silence [on the blog] is that I’ve been stretching myself to the hilt to reach for intelligent sentences of my own. [referencing Obama's intelligence in a previous post]

At the suggestion of my Italian publisher, Marcos y Marcos, I’m rewriting one of the two voices in my new novel, Finding Alice, a story I sat down to write for the first time on January 1, 1986. It then became my thesis at the MFA program at Columbia.

Finding Alice is a story that has possessed me, the story that got me to sit down and write.

I’m probably working on the 30^th draft.

Each one has gotten better because through the years what began as a personal story, meaningful perhaps only to me, found its own voice, its own reason for being.

The changes the Italian publisher suggested (how lucky that she cared enough to edit me) are right on. “Why didn’t I think of them?” I immediately asked myself. A dumb question I think every writer has asked at one point or another.

Winter, Obama, Hope and "Finding Alice"

Camilla Trinchieri writes: It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything for this blog, but it’s been an odd winter. After needing a new crown, root canal surgery and a new filling in the space of two months, I’m calling this the winter of my dental discontent.

It’s easier to focus on teeth and the price paid to keep them in my mouth, than to dwell on the changes we’re all facing thanks to the sliding economy.

The good, no, the great news of this winter is that a man with brains is living in the White House. He’s going to make mistakes, the economy will take forever to pick up again, but at least he continues to inspire with his complete, erudite sentences, one cascading after another to form intelligent, strong thought, something we can hold up to the light, ponder, agree or disagree with. A side benefit is that Obama makes me feel that my own I.Q. is growing.

The main reason for my long silence is that I’ve been stretching myself to the hilt to reach for intelligent sentences of my own. At the suggestion of my Italian publisher, Marcos y Marcos, I’m rewriting one of the two voices in my new novel, Finding Alice, a story I sat down to write for the first time on January 1, 1986. It then became my thesis at the MFA program at Columbia.

Finding Alice is a story that has possessed me, the story that got me to sit down and write.

I’m probably working on the 30^th draft.

Each one has gotten better because through the years what began as a personal story, meaningful perhaps only to me, found its own voice, its own reason for being.

The changes the Italian publisher suggested (how lucky that she cared enough to edit me) are right on. “Why didn’t I think of them?” I immediately asked myself. A dumb question I think every writer has asked at one point or another.

Back from Florence, Camilla Trinchieri Reports, Never Far from a Mystery

Camilla Trinchieri writes:

I’m back! Still jet-lagged and overwhelmed by mail to go through, magazines to read, phone calls to make - the downside of traveling, but, oh, what a wonderful trip it was.

I spent three days in Rome seeing my nephews and old friends then I was off to Florence. My first challenge was facing four flights up a narrow, steep, uneven staircase to the tiny studio cum skylight I had rented. Thank God, trusty friend and translator Erika, who had picked me up at the train station, insisted on lugging my book heavy suitcase up those treacherous flights. During the two weeks I was there, as I went up and down those stairs several times a day I kept telling myself it was a good exercise that would slough off the wine, the pasta, the beans, the salami and again the wine I was consuming with joyous vigor every day. My muscles ached, but I felt virtuous.

The first day, a Monday, I had an easy class at the Institute at Palazzo Rucellai with four junior-year-abroad American women, who were advanced Italian language students: Lauren, Leslie, Emily and Rebecca, all of them eager, interested, and intelligent. Lucky me. I say 'easy class' because we discussed the Italian version of The Price of Silence and their enthusiasm was heart warming. That evening I gave a talk at Kent State University Florence, which I called "A Journey into Fiction Writing." I talked about how I got into writing, interspersed with quotes and vignettes about writing I’d culled from other writer’s writings. It was the first time I had spoken in an academic setting and had been nervous about it for weeks before, but I was able to relax a little when Maria Nella, a good friend who lives in Lucca, showed up with flowers, orange Gerbera daisies that lasted the full two weeks of my stay. It was to her smiling, encouraging face that I addressed for most of my talk.

Erika, who is a professor of Classics at Kent State Florence, gave me a great introduction which also helped. Well, I got through it without too many flubs and stutters, and at the end offered the audience chocolates because I truly believe that reading and writing are food for the mind and the soul. Bread would have worked better as a metaphor, but Tuscan bread is unsalted and begs for a thick slice of prosciutto or cheese which would require plates, napkins and something to help the bread go down. Too complicated. Chocolates would have to do.

Once the first day jitters were gone, I easily got into the routine of the five minute walk in the morning to a caffe’ near the Ponte Vecchio for a cappuccino and a mini sandwich which I ate sitting on a stool looking out at the Arno and the Uffizi Museum on the other shore. Then a fifteen-minute walk to the school, a quick check of my e-mails in the faculty lounge, a chit chat with the administrators and then class. In the days and hours between classes, Erika walked me through the center of her city. We talked, we laughed, we went to see the restored Madonna del Cardellino by Raphael at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, so beautiful and serene a painting you want to sit at its feet for hours and forget about the terrors of the world outside.

We ate. We drank. We had coffee.

In the Cappella Brancacci Masolino brought me right back to suffering with his psychologically acute vision of Eve and Adam’s pain as God expels them from the Garden. We ate and we drank some more.

In the following days I got to meet and teach three more wonderful students: Janie, Cassandra, and Amy. I left the students my e-mail address and hope some of them will write. And I feel I have two new friends, Elena and Serena, the Italian teachers who helped me in class.

I missed out on one new friend: the resident ghost, Bianca, a 16th or 17th century (no one is sure of the dates) young woman who is believed to have committed suicide on the eve of her wedding by throwing herself out of a window of the palazzo. I sat quietly in the room some believe is hers and waited. If she was there she watched me in silence.

I want to write about Bianca. A young woman who kills herself –was she in love with someone else, was her husband-to-be a cruel man? What was she afraid of? Whatever the reason for taking her life, if she is still wandering through her home, what must she think of the students in the 21st century, midriffs bare, rings in their noses, nuzzling each other in the corners, laughing, sleeping through class, free to choose their lives. I’ll try to ask her next time.

Yes, I’ve been invited back. I’ll teach again in March.

As for those stairs to the studio? They didn’t do my waistline a bit of good, but I had a fabulous time.

From Camilla: Boucheron, The World Mystery Convention

Camilla writes:

This weekend I was in Baltimore attending Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention. It’s the biggest of the many conventions, attended by most of the heavy hitters of mystery fiction.

I got a big bear hug from Harlan Coben which felt great, got to hear Margaret Maron, Gillian Roberts, Louise Ure, and Dorothy Cannell, who can make a stone burst out laughing. Laura Lippman was the guest of honor.

The best was discovering a new author-new only for me- John Harvey, who was the international guest of honor. I just finished reading the second book in his new series-Ash and Bone. I’m told he’s not that well known here and I can’t understand why. I avoid noir novels-reading the newspaper is enough bad news for me-but I couldn’t put Ash and Bone down. Gobbled it up in one day. Anyone who wants to learn about writing-genre or literary-should pick him up. His strong spare prose showed me how few words are needed to paint a heart grabbing picture. I will read more of him.

(Photo courtesy of Henry Chang)
Michael Genelin, Grace Bophy, Camilla Trinchieri and Henry Chang

I was on a panel with three other Soho authors titled “I’ll Take You There,” monitored by our publicity director, Sarah Reidy. The reason for the title- the other authors write series that take place in foreign lands or foreign cultures. Cara Black has bodies crop up in Paris, Grace Bophy in Umbria, Michael Genelin in Slovakia and Henry Chang in New York’s Chinatown. Despite the fact that The Price of Silence isn’t part of a series and it takes place in Manhattan, a young Chinese student is a pivotal character, which sort of made me fit in. Clever Sarah announced to the audience that since I was Italian, Manhattan was a foreign land in my eyes. Maybe they bought it.

That night-Friday-Sarah and Ailen Lujo, the marketing director, took us to a fun restaurant—The Bicycle—where we had a great time eating, drinking and getting to know each other. I spent Saturday attending panels, keeping an eye out for old acquaintances. I hadn’t gone to a mystery convention in over ten years. There were a lot of new faces, and for a bit I felt like a fish thrown out of water, but after sighting a few people I knew from the old days when I was writing the Simona Griffo series, I settled in.

(Photo courtesy of Henry Chang)

Mystery conventions are exciting and exhausting, and they are a necessary part of a crime writer’s life. For months, even years on end, we sit in front of a computer with only our characters for company. It feels good to break out and mingle with like-minded people. Some of the famous may not give you the time of day, some are still pushing to be better known, some are hopefuls who are eager to learn from you. All are lovers of writing. That’s the best company there is.

(Photo courtesy of Henry Chang)

In the very front row, from the left, Henry Chang, Cara Black and Camilla Trinchieri.

Camilla Trinchieri: Reflecting on Italy, Finding Alice

Camilla writes:

I’ve been home for a month, still in the glow of those wonderful two weeks in Florence and Rome to launch the Italian version of The Price of Silence. Every day I’ve wanted to write about those weeks, but first it was jet lag and then my new novel, which I thought I had finished before leaving, needed a good sweep of the broom.

This new one, Finding Alice, a fictionalized version of my mother’s life in Prague and Rome during WWII, is the story that started me writing in the first place many years ago. The story which turned into my MFA thesis at Columbia. The story that required years of research. The story into which I poured my heart. Now it’s done (unless an editor says otherwise). I’m proud of it. Last week I sent it to my Italian publisher. They had asked to read it as soon as I was finished. After treating me like a literary queen with Price, I was only too happy to have them as my first official readers.

Now that I’m waiting to hear from them, waiting to hear from an agent, (first requirement to be a writer-Patience), I console myself by traveling back to my two weeks of glory.

I’m in a whirlwind of emotions. I’m reading, speaking, breathing Italian, trying to conquer the fear that I will stumble over words during an interview, give a stupid answer to an intelligent question, simply because the Italian words don’t come to me. I end up getting lots of intelligent questions—I am being treated as a serious writer—which allows me to entertain the thought that my novel inspired them.

It’s a good thing I’ve gone over a week ahead of time. I always stay with an Italian friend when I go to Rome and we sit at her kitchen table and chat and chat and my vowels open up, my r’s trill, the vocabulary comes rolling back. When I face a room full of prospective readers in the Florence bookstore, the words come pouring out for an hour and a half. I even tear a little because I’m so happy that Price is in both of my languages. I tell them that ever since I left Rome for New York, I have felt split in half. Now I feel whole.

Between the media buzz, I reconnect with friends, family. I walk the streets of Rome and go back in time. I see the street corner with the flower vendor from whom I bought lilies once for my sister, who has since died, the restaurant where I used to gobble down pizza on Sunday nights with the man I thought was the love of my life, the palazzo that used to be the Foreign Ministry where my father worked.

But the Rome that for years stood still for me is changing. Many reference points are gone. Stores, restaurants no longer there. Life moves on even in the Eternal City. I don’t like it much. I know, letting go of the past is a good thing, but the past is where my writing heart lives. The past looms heavily in all my novels. But I do look forward to what’s ahead. A possible “it’s a go,” from the Italian publisher, a “gripping from beginning to end,” from an American agent. And maybe this time it will be something in the future that will give me an idea for my next novel.

Well, to tell the truth, I’ve been thinking of a historical, something from way back, say, 4000 B.C.

I almost forgot- during my visit to Florence I was asked by the head of The Institute at Palazzo Rucellai to teach six creative writing classes the last two weeks of November. Turkeys are readily available, but I’ve already asked my friend and translator, Erika, to scout out where we’ll be able to buy sweet potatoes. I’ll bring the marshmallows.

Why do I need a translator if I’m boasting that I was spewing out Italian with no trouble at all? Well, the only Italian school I went to was kindergarten with the nuns. About the only Italian writing I could manage is a book for two year-olds. As for speaking, if you shake your hands around a lot with a smile you can get away with murder.

From Rome to Florence, Before the Book Presentation

From Camilla:

A whirlwind of emotions. In the midst of the excitement over the Italian edition of The Price of Silence, I’m reconnecting with friends who are pouring out their feelings, their fears, sometimes, not often enough, their joys. I listen and feel with them, for them and wish I could be with them more often.

I’m reading, speaking, breathing Italian. I walk the streets of Rome and go back in time, looking at the street corner where I bought my sister some lilies for her birthday, the restaurant where I gobbled down pizza after seeing Woody Allen’s Manhattan with friends, the palazzo that used to be the Foreign Ministry where my father worked. But Rome, that for years stood still, is changing. A lot of old reference points are gone. I don’t like it. I selfishly want the milestones of my memories to be there always, even as I realize that to let go of the past is a good thing.

I’ve just arrived in Florence. I’m staying at Erika’s house. She’s the Italian translator, who has become a close friend. She fed me a wonderful champagne and salmon risotto, lots of white wine. Tomorrow night the book presentation. I’m thrilled and scared at the same time. I don’t know what to expect. Thank God Erika is here to give me courage. She has a lot of friends. They will be coming for her and, if they are half as welcoming and generous as she is, it will be a memorable evening.

Note from Camilla on her Trip to Rome - A Homecoming

Camilla writes:

Tomorrow I leave for Rome where I lived and worked for seventeen years. I go every year to see family, friends, to reconnect with my Italian self.

This year is different. My book, The Price of Silence, has been translated into Italian. My heart started dancing when I found out and hasn’t stopped. I’m half Italian (on my father’s side) and half American and living in one country and then the other, I have always felt split in two. Now I’m whole thanks to this book, to my words being in both languages. I feel such joy. Yes, it’s wonderful to have the book sold to another country. The money is nice and it’s flattering. One can hope it will sell well, hope royalties will come in. That’s all true and I’m not denying that it’s part of my joy, but there’s so much more. Jeffrey, a friend of mine, put it in a nutshell. “It’s a homecoming,” he said.

I’m spending a week in Rome to catch up with everyone.

Then off to Florence on the 19^th for what the Italians call a "book presentation" during which a well-known author will introduce me and chat with me about the books.

My translator, Erika Bianchi, is from Florence and she’s promised me she’ll fill the bookshop, which is great. I’ve sat behind a desk in too many bookstores waiting and chatting with the staff. Afterwards we’re going to go off with her friends to a nearby bar for a glass of wine and some delicious munchies. After a few days in Florence I’m going back to Rome for more family and friends and one more presentation.

Then back to New York and my next story.

Erika Bianchi, the translator-she’s great, a redhead with the most enormous blue eyes I’ve ever seen. She’s a classics professor who teaches American students during their junior year abroad and in summer programs. I got a chance to meet her here in New York when she came to visit her best friend, who just happens to live a few blocks from me in Greenwich Village. Erika’s translation is lovely. Not once did I miss my English sentences. I felt as if I had written them, as if the story had been conceived in Italian. I still speak the language well (fluently when I left 28 years ago), but the only Italian school I went to was kindergarten with the nuns. My writing is filled with errors, with Americanisms. I’m lucky that the Italian publisher, Marcos y Marcos hired Erika.

But then the transformation of The Price of Silence into Il prezzo del silenzio has been filled with luck. I’m riding high right now. And even if the book sells only modestly I’ll still have the sensation that the two sides of me have finally come together. And I’ll still be happy. Maybe it doesn’t make much sense, but it’s given me an ecstatic feeling I’m not going to cross examine.

Ciao

On Writing: Writing My Way Home

Camilla writes about how she began writing during a new phase in her life:


I left Rome in the summer of 1980, eager to make a new life for myself in America like so many Italians before me. New York City was the only possible choice for my new home. I had two wonderful, supportive friends from my college days at Barnard and those four years in the city--during which I played, sometimes studied and above all discovered my independence--were the best years of my life. Or so I remembered, which is all that counts.

to continue click here