Franzi Ascher-Nash was born in Vienna, Austria on November 28, 1910 to
operetta composer Leo Asher and Luise Frankl. She attended the Humanistisches
Maedchengynasium in Vienna graduating with honors in 1928. From 1929 to
1931, Ms. Asher-Nash attended the Vienna Academy of Music but chose to pursue
a writing career rather after only her second year. In 1934 she became a
free-lance writer for numerous Austrian newspapers and journals. Just prior
to Nazi Germany's annex of Austria in 1938, she and her parents departed
for France, then England and eventually to the United States. After arriving
in New York City in December of 1939 she began writing music reviews for
the German weekly Neue Volkszeitung (1940-1949) and short essays
for the Austro-American Review (1945-1949). During the Second World
War, Ms. Asher-Nash became a traveling lecturer sponsored by the New
York Herald. She mostly toured women's clubs throughout the New York,
New Jersey and Pennsylvania lecturing on Austrian politics, history and
culture. Following the war, she continued lecturing and writing, by contributing
essays and short stories to the German American Studies Magazine,
Lyrik and Prosa Magazine and Lyrica Germanica Magazine from
the late 1940's to the early 1950's. She published two novellas and two
books during those same years. From 1954 to 1961 she lectured at the New
School for Social Research on the topic of history and development of Opera
and Song. On November 21, 1959 she married Edgar R. Nash a composer and
musician. In 1962 she began hosting her own radio program entitled "The
Story of the Art Song", which ran weekly until 1964. Throughout the 1960's
and 1970's she published essays, short stories and poetry in magazines and
journals in the United States, India, Germany and Austria. During the 1980's,
she guest lectured at many national and international conferences and contributed
poetry to selected anthologies. In 1986 she moved to Millersville, Pennsylvania
where she resided until her death in 1991. Ascher-Nash, Franziska (1910-1991)
Nash, Edgar R.
Essayists, American.
Essayists, Austrian.
Austrians -- United States.
Women poets, American.
Women poets, Austrian.
Women authors.
Vienna -- History.
Austria -- History -- 20th century.