November 9, 2001

Visiting Writer-in-Residence makes music with words

by Lisa Olson, A'03, Intern Offices of Publications and Public Affairs

A former jazz pianist, Tom Piazza fell in love with fiction writing in the late 1970s, while working at a growing bookstore in New York City called Barnes and Noble. He spent most of the next decade honing his writing skills. Piazza explored both fiction and nonfiction writing and was getting a lot of work from major magazines and newspapers for his writing about music. Wanting to devote more time to fiction, he decided to apply to graduate school and, in 1991, won a Maytag Fellowship from the Iowa Writers Workshop.

In the Hawkeye State, Piazza wrote most of his first book, Blues and Trouble, a collection of short stories following themes from blues music. The book won a James Michener Award. As part of the Teaching-Writing Fellowship he received in his second year, Piazza also gained his first teaching experience. He taught a course in undergraduate fiction writing and screened applications submitted by other writers interested in the workshop.

Moving to New Orleans in 1994 was a homecoming of sorts, because Piazza said he has always liked the city and had visited several times during Jazzfest. In fact, he wrote the first and last of the stories in Blues and Trouble while visiting the Big Easy, and he completed four more books here, True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass, Blues Up and Down: Jazz in Our Time, The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz, and Setting the Tempo: Fifty Years of Great Jazz Liner Notes, all non-fiction.

Shortly after he arrived in New Orleans, Piazza met Loyola Professor Mary McCay, who had written a review of Blues and Trouble. McCay discussed the Visiting Writer-in-Residence Program with him; Piazza applied and was chosen for the position. He says he really likes Loyola. "It reminds me of the school I went to as an undergraduate, Williams College in Massachusetts. Everyone here is so friendly and the students are bright and serious about their education." Piazza teaches two classes, Introduction to Creative Writing and Novel Writing Workshop.

Although he likes teaching, Piazza says it is not his career. He is a writer at heart. In the past couple of years he has been awarded several residencies at both the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and at Yaddo, the famous artists' residence in Saratoga Springs, New York. "Both locations are very peaceful and inspiring," he reflects. "The environments encourage intense concentration. Everyone is focused on their art; people are discouraged from speaking or visiting before 5 p.m." Piazza also spent some time in Jackson, Mississippi, at Millsaps College, as the Eudora Welty Chair and Professor of Southern Studies. At Millsaps, Piazza taught an advanced fiction workshop and a course in Southern music.

Piazza has spent much of the last year traveling and working on his latest project, a novel, My Cold War. The novel explores what happens when historical events intersect with one's personal life. In the book, a professor of Cold War studies has made a name for himself in educational circles with his gimmicky approach to contemporary history. While his colleagues and students praise his glitzy teaching style, he begins to have doubts about himself and feels his life is a fraud. A trip to visit his estranged brother changes everything for him. Piazza expects to finish the final draft of the novel this fall and, with luck, it will be released in fall 2002.

Next on his agenda after Loyola: another novel and publishing a second edition to his book, The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz. He also will write for the Arts and Leisure section of the Sunday New York Times.