About Claude

I’m a writer, economist, painter, and poet – yes, all of that (plus I love cooking and have two wonderful dogs)!  And as if this wasn’t enough, I’m also Senior Editor at Impakter News, an online media for readers concerned with the way our world is going. I helped found it in 2014, and over the years, I have regularly written as a columnist (over 1,000 articles).Curious about them? Here’s the full list: ​list of authored articles  And that work at Impakter has been (and is) an exciting experience: I love online journalism, the explanatory kind I engage in, and I love being in touch with new, upcoming generations, working closely with millennial and Gen Z writers.

As to how I got there. It all started long ago, first at Barnard College and then at Columbia University. After graduation (with an economics degree), I dabbled in a wide variety of jobs before starting a 25-year career at the United Nations (Food and Agriculture), ending as Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia. Disclosure: I enjoyed my technical work traveling across the world and getting to know people from all walks of life much more than my managerial job. But sure, becoming a manager gave me invaluable insights into the difficult task leaders face…

Using several pen names (notably Claude Nougat for my books in English and Bonanno/di Linguaglossa for my books in Italian), I ended up authoring many books, including two in Italian that drew a lot of attention from critics, and one (a children’s book) even won several awards, including the prestigious Premio Mediterraneo. I wrote seven novels in English (all adult fiction) and a couple of essays, one on development aid (in English) and one on the concept of sustainability (in Italian, published in 1989, soon after the Brundtland Report); in the 2010s I was considered a prime exponent of Boomer literature, being a Goodreads librarian having launched a successful Goodreads group that at its high point (in 2014-15) had nearly 800 members, mostly writers of Boomer Lit (and readers!).

My most recently published book is a novella, Decapitation, first published in digital form in 2017 and issued as a paperback in 2019. I have now unpublished all my digital books and the paperbacks will only be available for a few more months, as I’m looking to change career paths: My self-publishing experience is over. It was interesting while it lasted, but I see myself as a “hybrid author”, one ready to go both ways, traditional with legacy publishers and on my own. Next steps include writing new books (I’ve got a finished manuscript) and editing the “old” ones for eventual re-issue.

I have had the honor of having my (very personal) poetry included in “Freeze Frame“, along with well-known American and English poets in an international poetry anthology curated by British poet Oscar Sparrow and published by Gallo Romano Media in 2012.

Stay tuned! I’m currently finalizing a new book, a YA adventure set in Mexico that takes readers back in time to the ancient Aztecs, and I will let all my friends and followers know as soon as it comes out. Check out my author page on Amazon, where I shall post the latest news:  https://www.amazon.com/author/claudeforthomme