About Me

Welcome to my blog! My name is Dominic Palumbo, and I am the author of “Tainted Chalice” and I am also a Physicist and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Expert. A little background about me, I received my Master’s in Applied Physics at Curtin University of Technology (Perth, Western Australia) and I have devoted my career towards researching and work as a lecturer in these fields. Currently, I’m partnered with a school as a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) professional teaching coding and robotics to Year 4 children. “Tainted Chalice” is my first novel and I hope readers will thoroughly enjoy reading it.

I was inspired to write “Tainted Chalice” when one evening, over pre-dinner drinks, our group’s Vietnamese cycling tour guide recounted his story of how he met his wife.

He was at an Opera performance when he was captivated by the soprano singing “Sì, mi chiamano Mimì” from La Boheme. She was so beautiful and elegant and her voice gave him goosebumps. He was immediately besotted by her, but at the same time he felt that he was way below her league. After attending many of her opera recitals throughout Vietnam he found the means and the determination to meet her. Their strong mutual attraction blossomed, and it was not long before they fell in love and married.

This story is the seed of inspiration for my book’s tale of impossible love and emotional conflicts.

Briefly returning to me, I attended a very small Catholic Primary School in a small country town. I made up 50% of the male students in my class. There were many more girls. The classroom was minimalistic with iron-legged desks which had a large round ink-well hole and a lid which opens upwards. The inside of the compartment smelled of pencil shavings, paper and craft glue. The front wall boasted a large rectangular, black chalkboard. On one side of the chalkboard stood an old brown cupboard.

One day, the teacher (a Nun) asked me to tidy up the inside of the cupboard. I readily agreed to stop torturing myself with trying to draw a portrait. The cupboard was full of stationery which I shuffled around. Then I discovered something that was to have a profound effect on my life. On the bottom shelf there was a cardboard box filled with booklets – no covers. I could see the title of the uppermost booklet; it read “Matter”. I remove it and thumbed through the pages. It was a science book simple to read with “cartoonish” pictures. It outlined science experiments to do without the need for complicated equipment. The next booklet was titled “Sound” and the next “Light” and the next “Electricity”. I was excited with my find. I removed the top 5 booklets and furtively squirreled them back to my desk. I couldn’t wait to get home. I had a lot of science reading to do. I was in Year 8 and I planned to read every booklet in that box by the time I completed Year 10.

. . . to be continued

I look forward to any feedback. Thank you

7 Comments on “About Me”

  1. Hi Dominic, how very interesting, what talent! I have your book now, so will be reading it soon 😉 I too was in primary school with Catholic nuns as teachers, with things squirrelled away…just for the perfect time. Looking forward to reading the romance 😎 Josie

  2. We were both in Year 8…you the only boy with Sandra Pollard, Margaret Fitzgerald?, Marie Richardson?? There my memory ends sadly…think there were 6 or 8 of us??

    Sue

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