Abel Posse
The novelist's father, Ernesto Parentini, a porteño of Italian parents, was one of the founders of Artistas Argentinos Asociados and was the producer of the legendary feature film La guerra gaucha (1942), based on the text by the poet Leopoldo Lugones. The young Abel Posse grew up in the Argentine capital near Rivadavia street, and given his father's profession was exposed to the artistic and cultural milieu this most sophisticated of the South American capitals had to offer. The “Queen of the River Plate”, as Buenos Aires came to be known, fascinated the young man, (4) and his memories are evoked in his novel Los demonios ocultos (1987).
He was able to mingle with the glamorous stars of Argentine show business, like Chas de Cruz, Pierina Dealessi, Ulises Petit de Murat, Muñoz Azpiri, the writer of radioplays which were performed by Eva Duarte (de Perón), as well as the tango composers Aníbal Troilo and Homero Manzi. Such were the family connections to show business that one of his aunts, Esmeralda Leiva de Heredia, better known as “La Jardín”, was an actress friend of Eva Duarte. (5) Growing up in this environment enabled him to obtain an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the tango repertoire and its culture, (6) which imbues his novel La reina del Plata (1988).
Paul A. Toth
Born in 1964, Toth was raised in Flint, Michigan, a once-thriving "GM town" that was, by the time of Toth's elementary school years, beginning to disintegrate. Eventually, GM would provide less and less a basis for the city's existence, creating an economic void that has yet to be filled. Growing up in the Vietnam and Watergate era, Toth's earliest years involved bouts with the obsessional end of OCD as well as unexplainable depressions that intensified with age. These symptoms were often confused with bipolar disorder, leading to an array of approaches and solutions that inevitably failed. When college proved an intermittent and disappointing affair, Toth began traveling, eventually living in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Denver, and various locations in Florida. Through his late thirties and forties, Toth decided to complete his BA and then pursue an MA at Gonzaga University. Along the way, he found relief in the works of Jim Thompson, Samuel Beckett, J.G. Ballard, W.G. Sebald, William S. Burroughs, Henry Miller, and the Greek tragedians. His thinking has been influenced by the likes of George Bataille, Guy Debord, Henri Bergson, Montaigne, Marcel Duchamp, and many others. In addition, Toth’s “The Kind of Girl You Read About in New Wave Magazines” won an &NOW award in 2009 and was published in "The &NOW Awards: The Best Innovative Writing". Toth also participated in the annual &NOW Festival of New Writing.