BIO | Mark Tedesco

I split my year between two homes — a place in southern Tuscany — and California, where I'm from. For eight years I lived in Rome full-time, and that's where the stories really started. The city has a way of pulling the past into the present and making you feel part of it. It's hard to walk past a 1,700-year-old church on the way to buy bread and not start wondering about the lives that filled it.

That curiosity has shaped most of what I write. I am John, I am Paul came out of years of digging into two soldiers who actually lived in 4th-century Rome under Constantine and Julian. She Seduced Me is closer to a love letter — to a city I keep coming back to. Stories from Puglia tracks what happened when we went looking for the South. The Dog on the Acropolis, The Words of My Father, That Undeniable Longing, Onward — each one started somewhere similar: a place I couldn't stop thinking about, a conversation that brought me to another place, or a visit where history came alive.

When I'm not working on a book, I'm writing the blog — notes from our life in Tuscany, what we've learned about buying and fixing up a house here, towns worth knowing, and the practical reality of an American splitting time between two countries. I taught history and literature for years before retiring, which probably explains why I can't visit a place without trying to figure out what was there 500 years ago.

If you want to follow along, the blog is the easiest way. You can sign up for alerts on the Contact page.