Richard Tomlinson

Before turning to fiction, Richard divided his time between academia (in Australia, the USA, and South Africa) and urban policy consulting across Southern Africa.

ACADEMIC

Either in full-time or visiting capacity, he has been located in Australia at the University of Melbourne (Chair of the Urban Planning Program); in South Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand; and in the USA at Columbia and New School Universities and MIT, and in think tanks at the Brookings Institution and the Wilson Center; and at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy. He completed his PhD at Rutgers University.

CONSULTANT

After 1990, with democracy on South Africa's horizon, Richard began consulting in many areas of urban policy. His clients in Southern Africa included the post-apartheid South African government, various local and international NGOs, the World Bank, USAID, the private sector; during which time he facilitated multi-party negotiations. He also worked with community organizations.

VIENNA'S VIOLINIST

In March 1938 Germany annexes Austria. At the Heldenplatz Hitler gives a speech to 200,000 rapturous Viennese. A pogrom ensues … and Jews are expelled from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Klaus Lehner plays for the Orchestra and covets the newly vacant concertmaster position. He is bitter when passed over. Eva, his lover and a virtuoso cellist, urges that they leave Vienna and pursue careers as soloists. Her Nazi husband finds out about the affair and has Klaus sent to a Mauthausen forced-labor subcamp. He survives, translating his nightmares into a tone poem.

Klaus returns to war-ravaged Vienna and to Helga, his wife, who has suffered terribly, and to Ilse, his daughter. He makes a living busking on the streets of Vienna while seeking to rebuild a family.

When Klaus auditions for the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Eva is backstage, waiting.

Music and love are like waves on an incoming tide and Klaus is being washed ashore.

THE BOLOGNA MIRACLES

Faith and physics in Renaissance Italy provide the opportunity for an irreverent, satirical 'take' on academia, the Church, sex and sin.

De Biaggi is a brilliant physicist whose breakthrough regarding time travel is mocked by academic colleagues. Due to his religious zeal, they laugh that he seeks to visit Jesus. He is advised to ensure that his vaccinations are up to date lest he need a miracle. De Biaggi decides to return to Bologna at the time of his grandmother, 1937, and to make profound breakthroughs that he can attribute to divine inspiration. He arrives in 1498. His breakthroughs require, at the very least, an understanding of Einstein. His scheme fails. Christ and physics remain disunited. Unforeseen, the tech he has brought with him enables him to perform seeming miracles. It is a coincidence that circa 1498 Cardinal della Rovere (soon to become Pope Julius II), Copernicus and Michelangelo are in Bologna and Da Vinci is down the road. They certify that miracles are occurring. Cardinal della Rovere and Copernicus secure DeBiaggi a position at the University of Bologna. All is not lost.