Meet The Authors in Nice!

Every June, Ella Dyer brings us together to honor a group of expatriate authors with a strong relationship to France—”Meet The Authors!”

Join Ella and I upstairs at Oscar Restaurant in Nice to meet a group of authors who write about France and discover their books and their stories. They will talk about their recent works, read a bit from them, and answer your questions. You will have an opportunity to purchase their books and get signed copies! I will emcee the event and share my own experiences.

Authors may have a few of their books for purchasing and signing, but to be sure, you may want to pre-order your copy and bring it with you! Participation is free (but we ask that you purchase at least one drink to show the host venue how much we appreciate their hospitality). Don’t miss this special event in Nice! No need to register in advance, however, space is limited to 55 people.

Meet the Authors in Nice!
Saturday, June 1, 2022
3 to 5:30 p.m.
Oscar Restaurant
15 rue Masséna (upstairs)
06000 Nice

Click here to watch the replay.

Over the past 45 years, Ella’s varied career path has taken her from working at the Playboy Mansion to earning an MBA from The International University of Monaco. Author of Nice in Nice, she is fond of saying “A lifetime in Nice is never enough!” Ella and Jody, her husband of 34 years, found their flat in Nice before the introduction of the Euro. During her time on the Riviera Ella focuses on helping others who want to learn about and live on la Côte d’Azur.

 

Founder of Meet the Authors in 2014, this annual event presents both local and international writers with a connection to France and the Côte d’Azur. This year’s event will be a wonderful way to celebrate the anniversary of the launch of her book at the Margaret Mitchell House—home to the author of Gone with the Wind—a decade later. Nice in Nice is available via Amazon in print and digital, soon to be translated into French.

Now, Meet the Authors (in alphabetical order):

1. Mike Colquhoun

Mike Colquhoun is a Nice-based writer, filmmaker, artist and photographer. He has published three novels, the latest being Paul, the other two are Continuum, also available as an audiobook, and Returning. He has also published a book of poetry with images of his paintings, Lines. As a filmmaker, Mike has written and directed two multiple award-winning screenplays; Julia, which is set on the Riviera. Mike’s stage play, Jennifer, was a success playing to audiences in Nice, including a French version, as well as in London and Dublin. In addition, his feature-length movie, Berlin Cake, which he wrote and directed, premiered in 2024 having commenced initial shooting in 2019. There is a battery of 17 feature-length screen plays which Mike has written that are currently available for production. Mike is also very active in the media creating articles and interviews with interesting people who have settled on the Riviera.

Paul Broché via Amazon

2. Pamela Moffatt

From the time her mom taught her to read before attending nursery school, Pamela Moffatt first identified as a “horse nut and nerd.” With thick trifocals, braces on her teeth and often on crutches after repeated surgeries for a bone infection, she found acceptance as a proto-teen when she moved to Aix-en-Provence with her mother, siblings, and dog. There, she could live and breathe horses at the Club Hippique when not in class at the public school CES Rocher du Dragon. Her love affair with France was thus planted in the rugged limestone soil of Provence and the twangy accent du midi. She felt more at home in her adopted country than in the US. France became her second mother, nurturing not merely her intellect but her reveries, sustaining her with hope when she was away and when so much seemed so wrong in the world: from pollution of the planet to wars between nations, and man’s inhumanity to both man and beast. Her first memoir, We Have the Stars, recounts her spiritual quest over multiple continents as a seeker, peace activist, daughter, sister, spouse, and friend. Her current work in progress, Notions of Exile, reflects on the nature of home. Having grown up between France and the US, living and working in transnational, multicultural contexts, she now identifies as a global citizen despite her US passport. Her two sons have grown into fine young men and reside in the US. She lives in Nice with her dog, Louie, and holds a PhD in French Renaissance Literature (Rutgers, 2000).

We have the Stars

3. Julie Scolnik

Paris Blue, Julie Scolnik’s debut memoir, is a story which lingered in the corridors of her psyche for more than forty years, and one which she always knew she would have to tell. Set against a magical backdrop of classical music and Paris in the late 70’s, Paris Blue is a true fairy-tale memoir (with a dark underbelly) about the tenacious grip of first love, heartache, and the role of memory in our lives. It has garnered over 18 awards and a quote from John Irving: “Not every true story is like a good novel, but this one is. Not every memoir of first love has a satisfying ending, but this one does. The confluence of first love with becoming an artist makes this memoir special.”

Scolnik is a concert flutist and the founding artistic director of “Mistral Music,” a chamber music series which, since 1997, has been known for its virtuosic artists, imaginative programming, and the personal rapport that Scolnik establishes with her audiences. Since her treatment and recovery from breast cancer in 2005, Julie has found ways to play and organize benefit concerts that raise funds for support for underserved women with the disease. The most recent includes two full orchestral concerts with the world-renowned Sir Simon Rattle in Jordan Hall, Boston, and at the Hotel de Ville de Paris, for the League Contre le Cancer.

Julie lives in Boston with her husband, physicist Michael Brower and her two cats, Daphne and Chloë. They have two adult children, also musicians. They spend almost five months a year in Eygalieres, Provence.

4. Joe Siart

After graduating with a journalism degree, Joe Siart jumped over to the advertising and marketing side of communications. His day job has been selling media and technology in the US and Europe for more than a dozen years, lately with startups. Tragicomedy travel memoir, French License is his return to writing, with his first book. His second book, The Chairfather, was released in 2018. The book is an irreverent series of brief encounters over lunch with 50 departed divas decomposing at the cemetery of La Père Lachaise: candid photos, spicy interviews, and luminaries who haven’t spoken for hundreds of years. You’ll never believe what they say!

French License

5. Véronique Jeannot-Spineu

As the anciennée créatrice of the concept store at the Hôtel Le Negresco and the former Senior Sales Manager there, Niçoise Véronique, had the unique advantage of being at this historic landmark daily. Véronique says some people set a challenge in the sporting arena, but she had her heart set on the challenge of writing a novel. It was a fantasy—which has now been fulfilled—that inspired her to create this story. Véronique is a lover of the Belle Epoque era and wanted to reveal the creation of the legendary Côte d’Azur through fiction. Her main ambition was to shed light on the characters of this period and left an indelible mark on the landscape of the French Riviera. The hero’s tribulations guide us through the pages, helping us to understand, among other things, the rise of tourism. She wanted to write a “uchronia”—a utopia within an authentic historical chronology. The whole story is fiction… but it could have happened!

LES HIVERNANTS: Influenceurs de la Belle Epoque

6. Cecilia Woloch

Poet, writer, performer, and teacher Cecilia Woloch was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up there and in rural Kentucky—one of seven children of a homemaker and an airplane mechanic. She is a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship recipient and the author of six acclaimed collections of poems: Sacrifice, a BookSense 76 Selection in 2001; Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem, featured in a commemorative exhibit at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2020; Late, for which she was named Georgia Author of the Year in Poetry in 2004; Narcissus, winner of the Tupelo Press Snowbound Prize in 2006 and a finalist for the California Book Award; Carpathia, a finalist for the Milton Kessler Award in 2010; Earth, winner of the 2015 Two Sylvias Press chapbook prize, and Sur la Route (On the Road) a novel-in-vignettes. The text of Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem was the basis for multi-disciplinary performances in the U.S. and Europe; it was translated into French and was published as Tzigane, le poème Gitan by Scribe-l’Harmattan in 2014. Cecilia collaborates regularly with musicians, dancers, visual artists and theatre artists. Her work has been translated and published in French, German, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Hebrew, and Romanes. She has given readings and led creative writing workshops across the U.S. and around the world. In 2021-22, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Rzeszów in southeastern Poland, near the border of Ukraine. When she’s not traveling, she lives in Los Angeles.

Books on Amazon.com

Note: The event is free, however, Oscar Restaurant asks that you order at least one drink! Thanks for your understanding. See you there!

Meet the Authors in Nice!
Saturday, June 1, 2022  Click here to watch the replay.
3 to 5:30 p.m.
Oscar Restaurant
15 rue Masséna (upstairs)
06000 Nice

For more information visit our website or email Ella Dyer.

A la prochaine…