by Tommy Zurhellen | Nov 5, 2012 | Creative Non-Fiction, Of Literary Interest
This was once known as the Island of the Dead. When Giuseppe Poggi, the great architect of modern Florence, knocked down the city’s medieval walls in 1865 and replaced them with wide avenues, he left this island alone, instead choosing to build the street right around...
by Tommy Zurhellen | Oct 4, 2012 | Book Excerpts
It’s right around midnight when the booze runs out. There’s always that scary window at a party when folks are drunk enough to pick fights but not drunk enough to do everyone else a favor and just pass out. I’ve sat through enough wedding receptions to know they turn...
by Tommy Zurhellen | Sep 25, 2012 | Creative Non-Fiction
I’m sitting alone on a rooftop veranda overlooking the steep cavern of the Via del Giglio, listening to a waiter downstairs at bustling Café Giotto patiently answer questions from an American couple. Okay buddy, but what exactly is this one here – chin-gee-al-ee?...
by Tommy Zurhellen | Sep 16, 2011 | Creative Non-Fiction
Last night I had the Navy Dream again. It’s my own version of that anxiety dream everyone experiences when life gets too complicated. In the Navy Dream, somehow I find myself back in the Navy, on a new ship without any friends, uniforms or gear — and most...
by Tommy Zurhellen | Mar 4, 2011 | Short Fiction
You had a girlfriend back in New York. You meet her at the Bowery Poetry Club when she spills a drink in your lap and wipes it up with a beret belonging to a complete stranger. She writes songs for television shows. She is best known for a song called “Fart in Your...
