Get to Know Nello

My wife Mary and I live in Downtown Brooklyn, NY. I am the founder and director of ARTS Action Research, an arts management consulting business, serving performing, exhibiting and literary arts organizations, nationally and internationally.

I have worked at Western States Arts Federation, Denver, Colorado, and the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC. I was named Fulbright International Scholar in 1993 and have authored and published more than a dozen books and special report publications related to the arts and artist-led organizations.

I am originally from Springfield in the Missouri Ozarks. Mary and I met as dance students at Stephens College, Columbia, MO, and we both danced in the professional dance company in residence there. I love to cook, read, write and dance, and Mary and I attend many theater and dance events and love to travel.

I am often asked if the stories in Rings of Jeffrey Series are autobiographical. The clear and simple answer is no, the books in this series are works of fiction. But the lives of Jeffrey, Lucy and the Wheel-Runners depicted are informed by my own personal experiences at their age when I spent extended periods of time in the hospital in a wheelchair.

I was not the victim of a vicious spider bite, but rather I underwent several years of corrective surgery on my feet and legs. From that experience I developed a profound love and respect for the kids I met. Most of them only experienced life in wheelchairs. I learned a lot of wheelchair tricks and maneuvers from those kids as Jeffrey did in The Rings of Jeffrey. I also learned a lot about their resilience and defiance of limitations living in a world fairly oblivious to their challenges. Most of all I learned that it’s impossible to keep courageous and spirited kids from having fun.

I was lucky and recovered from my many surgeries and went on to play football, baseball and pole vault in high school. I graduated from college with a degree in dance where I studied ballet and many other forms of dance. I started dancing very late in life and beyond college was unable to have the full professional dance career I wanted. But dance and the arts have remained a centerpiece of my life and career ever since.

The third book in the Rings of Jeffrey trilogy, When Fates Divide, is out NOW!!