Davide Longo

Inside AlfaBaita

I’m the one who got the idea of AlfaBaita and realized it with the help of my family, naming our holiday homes after great authors like Cormac McCarthy, Ferdinand Céline and Agota Kristof. This is because I’m not only a mountain lover, but also a writer and a creative writing teacher at the Scuola Holden in Turin, and therefore the person who:

• will help you unblock a story that got jammed, during a Writing Residency or Writing Week;
• will unwind the connecting thread of the books and films chosen for the Reading Workshops;
• can be contacted if you want to apply for an Artist Residency;
• will guide you on one of our Literary Hike.

Outside AlfaBaita

Biography

I was born in 1971 in Carmagnola, a flat town from where you can always see and almost touch the mountains, specifically the Monviso. Maybe that’s why in all my books, apart from my first novel from 2001, Un mattino a Irgalem which was situated in Ethiopia, my passion for and familiarity with the mountains almost always intertwined with my work as a writer. 

It was like that for Il mangiatore di pietre (The Stone Eater) which was set in the Valle Varaita; for the short story collection Racconti di Montagna; for the scenario of the film based on The Stone Eater, filmed in Switzerland and the Valle Varaita starring Luigi Lo Cascio; for the picture book La montagna pirata (The Pirate Mountain) that I made together with illustrator Fausto Gilberti (who granted us the rights to use the illustrations from the book on this site, along with others he made specifically to this end).

Also in my novels L’uomo verticale (The Last Man Standing), Il Caso Bramard (Bramard’s Case), Le bestie giovani (The Young Beasts) and Una rabbia semplice (A Simple Rage), whereby the last three form a series with Arcadipane and Bramard as protagonists, the mountains are always present.

So in a way it was only natural that my activities as a writer, as a creative writing teacher and as a mountain lover should merge into a project like AlfaBaita.

If you want to know more about my books, you can check my website davidelongo.com

Activities

Besides writing books and scenarios for films and series, I have been teaching narrative techniques at the Scuola Holden in Turin for over twenty years. I give courses that are specifically aimed at short stories, novels and scenarios.

Apart from the Writing Residencies and Writing Weeks, and the Reading Workshops connected to AlfaBaita, I have many other activities to offer, some in Turin, others in different places and still others online (a formula that arose with the restrictions of 2020 and I trust it will be one of the few things of that year that we will keep).

Here is a list of courses that I usually start up during the year:

• Online writing workshops
• Online reading circle
• The Session, a short editing workshop
• Literary Hikes (inside and outside AlfaBaita)
• Reading workshops (inside and outside  AlfaBaita)
• Apart from the courses, with my Blue Carpenter Agency I can work with any narrative text, and depending on the development stage of the novel, scenario, short story or anthology I will be offering: valuation reports, revision, editing, moral support, tutoring during the writing and contacts with publishers.

If there is something that might interest you, have a look at my website davidelongo.com, or better yet fill in the form below.