Meet the Speakers at our 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference in Redding

Our Third Speaker is:

Brent M. Colley
Historian

Brent's presentation is a visual Top Ten List of why Mark Twain's time in Redding is of importance.

84 slides filled with rare photos and commentary on everything you ever wanted to know about Twain's time in Redding.

You have to be there to see and hear it. :)

The 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference at Redding, Connecticut is Saturday, August 18th from 1pm to 5pm.

Meet the Speakers at our 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference in Redding

Our Second Speaker is:

James Nicoloro
Producer/Director

James will be speaking about Albert Bigelow Paine and sharing a sneak preview of his latest documentary:

The Redding Mark Twain- Twains last 22 months of life at his home in Redding, Connecticut

"What little I knew of Mark Twain came from a vague recollection of reading Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school. To a high school student like myself, the books seemed remote, the dialogue difficult. But no matter, Twain seemed to be part of my dna and there was nothing I could do about it. Who didn't known the name Mark Twain. At the turn into the 20th century he was one of the most famous people in the world. You could not overestimate his popularity. Time magazine recently called him our first super star. Author and critic, William Dean Howells, his literary confidant and friend of 40 years, gave him a more measured appraisal, calling him the Lincoln of our literature."

https://jamesnicoloro.wordpress.com/author/jamesnicoloro/

Below is a look at James' impressive career:

Morton and Luise Kaish Century Masters Video Profiles

Nicoloro Productions

April 2012 – Present (5 months) The Century Association exhibition room

In production on two short profiles of the work of Morton Kaish, painter and Luise Kasih, sculptor, for The Century Association exhibit, Luise & Morton Kaish Kx2:II. (7 West 33rd Street, New York, New York.).

 

Producer/Director

Nicoloro Productions

June 2009 – Present (3 years 3 months)

Research/Fundraising: Alice Austen A photographic Life
Research, pre-production: The Redding Mark Twain
Production: Art Deco New York with Barry Lewis

 

Producer/Director

Roger Wilco

January 2011 – June 2011 (6 months)

Produced and Directed a 13-part series on the high-end collector car market for Discovery Network. "What's My Car Worth" was shot on location in Scottsdale, AZ, Ft Lauderdale and Amelia Island, Florida, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Charlotte NC.

 

Producer

Thirteen/WNET

Nonprofit; 201-500 employees; Broadcast Media industry

April 1998 – January 2010 (11 years 10 months)

WNET/Thirteen, New York
Producer/Director 1998-2010, Walking Tour Series, New York Voices, Reel New York,Jonathan Pond Specials, Health Specials

Walking Tour Series with David Hartman and Historian Barry Lewis

A Walk Down 42nd Street (Emmy nominated)
A Walk Up Broadway, A Walk Through Harlem (Emmy nominated), A Walk Around Brooklyn (Emmy nominated), A Walk Through Greenwich Village
A Walk Through Central Park, A Walk Through Newark,A Walk Through Hoboken
A Walk Through Queens, A Walk Through the Bronx (Cine Golden Eagle)

Short Subjects

Designed for Pleasure (Asia Society), Asa Ames (American Folk Art Museum),Tibetan Art (Rubin Museum)
Take me out to the Ballgame (NYPL), Art of Empire (New York Historical Society, Chagall (Museum of Biblical Art)
Seduction of Light (American Folk Art Museum), Twixt Art and Nature (Bard Graduate Center), Protecting the Word (Morgan Library)
The Glass House of Phillip Johnson, Gehry’s IAC building, Dutch Water Colors, DNA barcode (New York Botanical Garden)

Producer/Director - Series, Producer/Director - Documentary
Producer - Live and live on tape, Producer – Fund Raising
Manager Broadcast Operations, Graphic Designer (print and video)
Photographer, Offline Editor - Avid, Final Cut/Final Cut X
Effects - Photoshop/After Effects, Line Producer, Camera

 

Senior Producer

KCTS Television

Nonprofit; 51-200 employees; Broadcast Media industry

April 1983 – December 1998 (15 years 9 months)

Manager of Broadcast Operations, Pledge Producer, Senior Producer 

The 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference at Redding, Connecticut is August 18th 1pm to 5pm at the Mark Twain Library. Space limited to 80 people.

Meet the Speakers at our 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference in Redding

In the Lead-off Spot...

Steve Courtney
Publicist and Publications Editor

Mark Twain House & Museum Publicist and Publications Editor Steve Courtney won the 2009 Connecticut Book Award for Joseph Hopkins Twichell: The Life and Times of Mark Twain’s Closest Friend (University of Georgia Press, 2008). His most recent book, published to acclaim in the fall of 2011, is ‘The Loveliest Home That Ever Was’: The Story of the Mark Twain House in Hartford (Dover), with a Foreword by Hal Holbrook and photographs by John Groo.

In the past decade, Courtney has frequently written and spoken on Samuel Clemens’ friend Twichell and his role in literary and social history. He co-edited, with Peter Messent, The Civil War Letters of Joseph Hopkins Twichell: A Chaplain's Story (University of Georgia Press, 2006). He founded and leads an annual eight-mile walk in the Hartford area commemorating similar autumn and spring walks Twichell and Clemens took.

Courtney is also a freelance editor and researcher, having worked in this capacity on a major new biography of William Gillette, the American stage portrayer of Sherlock Holmes; a work on the ethical basis of American political philosophy; a history of the Ensign Bickford corporation; and a major biography of inventor and industrialist Joseph Gerber.

He has been a journalist for 36 years, more than twenty of them at The Hartford Courant in Hartford, Connecticut. There he was a bureau chief, copy editor, book reviewer, interviewer and writer on scientific, historical and literary subjects, including an acclaimed series on the then-little-known work of Yale biologist Thomas Steitz, the 2009 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. Courtney was Deputy Editor of Northeast, the Courant's Sunday magazine, for five years, and served as President of Sunmag, the national organization of Sunday magazine editors.

Courtney received his Bachelor of Science degree in History from Charter Oak State College in 1997.

Mark Twain's Only Grandchild

If you are not a member of the Mark Twain Forum, I would highly recommend you sign-up today: http://www.twainweb.net/

The Mark Twain Forum is an e-mail list that includes all the World's top scholars and enthusiasts. Last week a true gem arrived from R. Kent Rasmussen. Mr. Rasmussen is an author of six book on Twain and is considered an authority in Mark Twain studies.

"A moment ago, I noticed that today's date is August 18 and recalled its significance in Clemens family history. As much was made of last year's centennial of Mark Twain's death, it may be worth mentioning that today is both the 115th anniversary of Susy Clemens death and the 101st anniversary of Mark Twain's only grandchild, Nina Gabrilowitsch's birth.

It's hard not to wonder what Mark Twain would have made of that coincidence."

He went on to wonder out loud where in the house Nina was born, noting that it was doubtful that Clara would use the same bed that her father had died in just months before.

That question was answered by Kevin Mac Donnell, a Twain collector and top-tier authority on both Mark Twain's works and his life.

"I have Nina's original birth certificate and it doesn't say. Clara's music room was over the loggia, but her bedroom was near the top of the stairs. It was roomy with a terrific view of the backyard, pergola, and Redding, and had it's own big bathroom, so I suspect that's where Nina made her debut. The bedroom, not the bathroom. I have a batch of letters from Clara from just before and after Nina's birth and no clues there either."

So, my mission for next August 18th is to have more information on where Nina Gabrilowitsch's birth took place at Stormfield.




A Photo shopped image I created to show Sam and Nina, side-by-side.