Richard Tres
I, Richard Tres, am a 65-year-old Californian, retired after teaching 35 years in the high school and college levels, mainly English. I live in Napa with my beloved wife of 40+ years, Janice, who has owned and run the very successful Sunrise Montessori in Napa Valley (toddler through sixth grade) since the late seventies. We are blessed with two grown children, Laura and David, and two adored granddaughters, Ella (3 and a half), whom I was fortunate enough to nanny for 3 years, and Harper (3 mos.), whom I am blissfully nannying now. Laura, married to computer wizard Jordan, is a Montessori teacher, and David has also taught and is presently studying improv in LA (Upright Citizens Brigade), writing and acting in an in-progress comedy series and working at the LA Zoo.
I graduated from St. Mary’s College of California (’74), double-majoring in Classics and Integral Liberal Arts (based on the Great Books Program); U.C. Berkeley with M.A.s in Latin and English; received a summer Fulbright award to study Latin archaeology in Italy (2 months); three NEH awards (Jack London, Roman Comedy and Lucian the Skeptic); written UCB M.A. dissertation on “The Pickwick Papers”; translated Latin of Aquinas (over 200 MS pages) for Matthew Fox’ “Sheer Joy”; edited hundreds of passages from Thoreau’s Journals as free verse (wordpress.com); written & delivered essay “Friendship and Trickery in Huck Finn” to CATE Conference. I acted in the following plays: “The Bacchae,” “The Tempest,” “Tartuffe,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Richard III,” “Up the Down Staircase,” “Arsenic and Old Lace,” “Of Mice and Men” and “Fahrenheit 451.” I volunteered for a year as a docent at the Di Rosa Art and Nature Preserve and for 4+ years as a literacy tutor through Napa County Library.
I have done plenty of travelling (U.S., Mexico, Canada, Europe) and studied and read literature in Latin, Greek (ancient and modern), French, Italian, German, Spanish and Russian. Born in Evanston, Ill., I am a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan, though locally I also follow the Giants, A's and Warriors.
I am VERY concerned with our country and the world. While researching and becoming obsessed with the Weimar period, I started seeing many parallels between then and now. When I came across the writings and life story of Carl von Ossietzky, I was inspired to retell his story.
I am hard at work on the second volume of The Weimar People Series (focusing on German philosophers during the rise of Nazism), and am resisting on twitter @Rich3Dawg.