Dina von Zweck

Dina von Zweck (1933-2012) was a prolific and adventuresome multimedia artist—poet, novelist, playwright, and painter. She was the award-winning author of 31 books that she produced while she was Director of Publishing at CBS Inc. from 1972 through 1986 where co-authored two nonfiction books, American Victorian (Harper & Row, excerpted in House Beautiful), and Venus Unbound (Simon & Schuster) about women’s psychology. Her feature film script Death & Diamonds won first prize in the NY International Film Festival, and her stage play Virgin won first prize in the TRU Playwriting Contest in 1999. Another play, Chatter, which she directed, was produced at the Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with musical collaborator Hans Tammen to standing ovations. Among her sixteen plays are Tokyo Rose, William Burrough @ The Automat, Glass House and The White Parrot, as well as Squirm: 6 One-Act Plays.

Her novels include Mica’s Brain, Flim Flam, Wheel of Fire, The Beekeeper, Dominga, El Rio Hablando (The Talking River, which was a finalist for the Willa Catha Fictionwriting Award; in 2000, Celebrity, her novel of fictional portraits won that Award); and several novellas including Matteo Ricci & The Empress of China, and XANADU: Marco Polo, Kublai Khan & the Chinese Princess. She has published numerous collections of poetry including The History of Words and most recently Peppermint Candy & Other Poems. Her long tone poem FLUDD—Virtual Polar Icecap Meltdown became the libretto for an operatic multimedia performance in 2010 in collaboration with composer Kristin Norderval. It was written in conjunction with the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and premiered in October 2010 at Greenwich House, NYC. She has composed a libretto, Infinity, a “neo-opera” based on the life and work of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), an Italian Dominican friar, who conceptualized the universe as infinite and who was burned at the stake by authorities after the Inquisition found him guilty of heresy. Her last work was REAL NEXT WAVE, a long evocative poetic tribute to Occupy Wall Street which she also photographed extensively from the movement’s inception, was incorporated in a multimedia operatic spectacle that premiered in Kansas City in the spring of 2013.