TILAR J. MAZZEO

Tilar J. Mazzeo is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a half-dozen award-winning non-fiction cultural histories, most recently Sisters in Resistance (Hachette), the true story of how a German spy, a banker's wife, and Mussolini's daughter joined unlikely forces to outwit the Nazis and provide evidence of war crimes at Nuremberg. The Wall Street Journal calls Sisters in Resistance "a compelling story, a tangled web of deceit, corruption, betrayal, courage and family intrigue. It reads like a spy thriller, moving at a fast pace, and even though the reader knows the successful outcome, the suspense never lets up."

Dr. Mazzeo, a former tenured academic and recognized as one of the foremost teachers of narrative nonfiction in the United States, is the author of the forthcoming book, How to Write a Bestseller, for Yale University Press (Aug 2024), a practical how-to book and an indispensable guide for anyone looking to write narrative nonfiction for a large public audience.

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Tilar's newest work of cultural history, a Gold-Rush-era story of extreme maritime adventure in the Antarctic and a biography of Mary Ann Patten, the first woman to command a merchant vessel, is forthcoming in 2025 from St. Martin's Press; research was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Program. And Tilar's first bestseller, The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire is now a major motion picture. 

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Tilar, a current WSET Diploma candidate, continues to work as an internationally recognized wine writer and to teach on the wine industry for business and management programs at the university level. Dr. Mazzeo holds a two-year post-graduate certificate in winemaking from the University of California - Davis, and readers can follow her monthly wine columns at Seaside, a West-Coast cultural magazine.