Tilar J. Mazzeo

Dr. Mazzeo has held a number of tenured, sessional, and research-exclusive academic positions over a twenty-year career, in fields ranging from English literature and narrative nonfiction to management and business in the wine industry, including posts as Professeure Associée at the University of Montreal, as the Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English (and a head of the department) at Colby College, and posts at other institutions ranging from Vancouver Island University, the University of Wisconsin system, Oregon State University, Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, and the University of Washington. 

Dr. Mazzeo completed doctoral studies in the Department of English and in the Program in Theory and Criticism at the University of Washington. She retired early from teaching and the academic track in 2019 in order to pursue writing full-time. Dr. Mazzeo is a 2022-2023 Public Scholar with the National Endowment for the Humanities (US), working on a book about nineteenth-century merchant mariner Mary Ann Patten, Antarctica, and the West Coast Gold Rush. Dr. Mazzeo, a lifelong sailor, and fourth-generation mariner (and a tenth-generation Mainer), co-captains a Vancouver 42 from her home on Vancouver Island, BC. She is a US-Canadian dual citizen.

A recipient of numerous prestigious awards and fellowships for her creative writing and work in narrative non-fiction, including an award from the Canada Council for the Arts for her most recent title, Sisters in Resistance, Dr. Mazzeo's previous works of cultural history and biography have been New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Los Angeles Times bestsellers. Her book on writing narrative nonfiction for general audiences, intended to assist academics, cultural researchers, and others trained in fact-based storytelling, is forthcoming from Yale University Press.

Dr. Mazzeo is also an internationally recognized wine writer with a focus on natural wines, the wines of Napa and Sonoma, and Champagne. She holds a post-graduate winemaking certificate (2-year program) from the University of California at Davis (2015) and an Advanced Certificate with Merit from the WSET (2012, International Wine Center, New York City). She has guest lectured at prestigious wine events, including Women of the Vine, the Symposium for International Wine Writers, and the San Francisco School of Wine. 

She was the recipient of Gourmand's award for the best work of wine writing for her bestselling "autobiography," The Widow Clicquot. From 2015-2021 she was the proprietor and winemaker at Parsell Vineyard, Vancouver Island's first natural / RAW winery. Her wine writing has appeared in venues such as Food and Wine. She writes a regular wine column for West Coast readers with Seaside Magazine.

Dr. Mazzeo leads writing retreats on narrative nonfiction, book proposal development, and travel/wine writing from her writing retreat on Malcolm Island, on the edge of the Great Bear Rain Forest.