Joseph Di Prisco

Last updated
Joseph Di Prisco
AGGPFB Prisco.jpg
Di Prisco at A Great Good Place For Books in 2017
Born1950 (age 73–74)
New York City, U.S.
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • poet
  • memoirist
  • teacher
Language English
Education Syracuse University
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Notable worksSubway to California, All For Now
SpousePatti James
Website
www.diprisco.com

Joseph Di Prisco (born 1950) is an Italian-American poet, novelist, memoirist, book reviewer, and teacher. He has published four novels (Confessions of Brother Eli, Sun City, All for Now, and The Alzhammer), three books of poetry (Wit's End, Poems in Which, and Sightlines from the Cheap Seats), two books on childhood and adolescence co-written with psychologist and educator Michael Riera (Field Guide to the American Teenager and Right from Wrong), and two memoirs (Subway to California and The Pope of Brooklyn). His book reviews, essays, and poems have appeared in numerous journals and newspapers, and his poetry has been awarded prizes from Poetry Northwest , Bear Star Press, and Bread Loaf. In 2017, Di Prisco was named Chairman of the Simpson Family Literary Project, a non-profit organization that sponsors literary outreach in the Bay Area and the bestowal of an annual $50,000 prize to "an author of fiction at the relatively middle stage of a burgeoning career." [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Joseph Di Prisco was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to his Italian-American father Joe "Pope" Di Prisco and his Polish mother Catherine "Caza" Di Prisco. At the age of ten, he was shuttled to California by his parents, as his father was on the run from federal and local law enforcement after a career as a small-time hustler, gambler, bookmaker, petty criminal, con artist, and confidential informant. [2] Joseph Di Prisco learned the detailed story of his father's criminal career when he came upon transcripts of New York State Appellate Division trials in which his father was the star witness. [3] Di Prisco wrote about this discovery in his memoir The Pope of Brooklyn (Rare Bird Books, 2017).

Di Prisco attended a Catholic boys' high school in California, graduated summa cum laude from Syracuse University, and went on to earn a PhD in English Literature from University of California, Berkeley, writing his dissertation on Mark Twain. Di Prisco subsequently taught English in schools and college for twenty years at places such as San Francisco University High School. At other times in his life he was a novice Brother in a Roman Catholic novitiate, a restaurant manager, wine consultant, and, for several years, a high-stakes professional blackjack player, traveling the world while bankrolled by big-money backers. [4]

Non-profit work

In 2017, Di Prisco spearheaded a new collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley English Department and the Lafayette Library called The Simpson Family Literary Project. This organization sponsors high school creative writing programs in the Bay Area, in addition to bringing an annual Writer-in-Residence. The 2017 Writer-in-Residence is Joyce Carol Oates. The foundation also awards an annual $50,000 prize to an author of fiction in the middle of his or her career. [5]

Di Prisco is also involved as a contributor or supporter of the California Shakespeare Theater, the Ann Martin Center, Playworks, Girls Inc, ZYZZYVA Magazine, the University of California, Berkeley, the Lafayette Library and Learning Center Foundation, The Oakland 100, and more. [6] He is Chair Emeritus of the Redwood Day School. [7]

Themes in Di Prisco's works

Di Prisco frequently draws upon his own life experiences in his work, where he fictionalizes them in a larger satire of a genre or narrative. Thus The Alzhammer follows a crime mob boss who is suffering from Alzheimer's; [8] All For Now takes on pedophilia in the Catholic Church, the afterlife, and modern media. [9] [10]

Critics have remarked upon the humorous and playful aspects of Di Prisco's work, which at the same time delivers powerful commentary on its subjects. Di Prisco's memoirs and novels have been praised by Jerry Stahl, Anne Hillerman, Dean Young, Steven Gillis and P. F. Kluge, among others. [11] [12]

Books

Novels

Poetry

Nonfiction

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugenio Montale</span> Italian writer (1896–1981)

Eugenio Montale was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature and one of the finest literary figures of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ishmael Reed</span> American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, and playwright (born 1938)

Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, composer, playwright, editor and publisher known for his satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best-known work is Mumbo Jumbo (1972), a sprawling and unorthodox novel set in 1920s New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanne Kyger</span> American poet

Joanne Kyger was an American poet. The author of over 30 books of poetry and prose, Kyger was associated with the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beat Generation, Black Mountain, and the New York School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Spicer</span> American poet

Jack Spicer was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer won the American Book Award for poetry. He spent most of his writing life in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al Young</span> American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter (1939–2021)

Albert James Young was an American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor. He was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from 2005 to 2008. Young's many books included novels, collections of poetry, essays, and memoirs. His work appeared in literary journals and magazines including Paris Review, Ploughshares, Essence, The New York Times, Chicago Review, Seattle Review, Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature, Chelsea, Rolling Stone, Gathering of the Tribes, and in anthologies including the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, and the Oxford Anthology of African American Literature.

Michael Rothenberg was an American poet, songwriter, editor, artist, and environmentalist. Born in Miami Beach, Florida, Rothenberg received his Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He moved to California in 1976, where he began "Shelldance Orchid Gardens", an orchid and bromeliad nursery. In 2016, Rothenberg moved to Tallahassee, Florida where he was Florida State University Libraries Poet in Residence.

Matthew Zapruder (1967) is an American poet, editor, translator, and professor.

Geoffrey G. O'Brien is an American poet. Educated at Harvard University and the University of Iowa, O'Brien has taught at Brooklyn College, The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and has been the Distinguished Poet in Residence at St. Mary's College of California and the Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry at the University of California, Berkeley, where he currently teaches. He also teaches in the Prison University Project at San Quentin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mei-mei Berssenbrugge</span> American poet

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge is a contemporary poet. Winner of two American Book Awards, her work is often associated with the Language School, the poetry of the New York School, phenomenology, and visual art. She is married to the painter Richard Tuttle, with whom she has frequently collaborated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Anderson (dance critic)</span> American poet and dance critic (1935–2023)

Jack Warren Anderson was an American poet, dance critic, and dance historian. He is well known for his numerous reviews of dance performances in The New York Times and Dance Magazine as well as for his scholarly studies in dance history and for eleven volumes of poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cole Swensen</span> American poet

Cole Swensen is an American poet, translator, editor, copywriter, and professor. Swensen was awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and is the author of more than ten poetry collections and as many translations of works from the French. She received her B.A. and M.A. from San Francisco State University and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and served as the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Denver. She taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa until 2012 when she joined the faculty of Brown University's Literary Arts Program.

North Atlantic Books is a non-profit, independent publisher based in Berkeley, California, United States. Distributed by Penguin Random House Publisher Services, North Atlantic Books is a mission-driven social justice-oriented publisher. Founded by authors Richard Grossinger and Lindy Hough in Vermont, North Atlantic Books was named partly for the North Atlantic region where it began in 1974, as well as Alan Van Newkirk's Geographic Foundation of the North Atlantic, an early (1970) ecological center founded in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, by radicals from Detroit. The publisher also cites Edward Dorn's 1960s poem, "North Atlantic Turbine: A Theory of Truth", which very early described the dangers of global commoditization by the Western World, as an inspiration in the company's name.

Forrest Hamer is an American poet, psychologist, and psychoanalyst. He is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Rift. His first collection, Call & Response, won the Beatrice Hawley Award, and his second, Middle Ear, received the Northern California Book Award. He has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the California Arts Council, and he has taught at the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Young (poet)</span> American poet

Gary Eugene Young is an American poet, printer and book artist. In 2010, he was named the first ever Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County.

Chana Bloch was an American poet, translator, and scholar. She was a professor emerita of English at Mills College in Oakland, California.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Rodney Koeneke is an American poet.

Shawna Yang Ryan is a Taiwanese-American novelist, short story writer and creative writing professor, who has published the novels Water Ghosts (2009) and Green Island (2016) (Knopf). She currently teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tommy Pico</span> Native American writer

Tommy Pico is a Native American writer, poet, and podcast host.

The Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize is an annual award presented by the New Literary Project to recognize mid-career writers of fiction. "Mid-career writer" is defined by the project as "an author who has published at least two notable books of fiction, and who has yet to receive capstone recognition such as a Pulitzer or a MacArthur." The prize, which carries a monetary award of $50,000, was established in 2017 and is administered by the New Literary Project, a collaboration of the Lafayette Library and Learning Center Foundation of Lafayette, California and the Department of English of the University of California, Berkeley.

References

  1. ↑ "Simpson Family Literary Project" . Retrieved 21 March 2017.
  2. ↑ Di Prisco, Joseph (2014). Subway to California. Los Angeles: Rare Bird Books. ISBN   978-1940207353.
  3. ↑ Di Prisco, Joseph (2017). The Pope of Brooklyn. Los Angeles: Rare Bird Books. ISBN   9781945572111.
  4. ↑ Fancher, Lou (8 January 2015). "Author Joseph Di Prisco takes the 'Subway to California'". Mercury News. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  5. ↑ "Shelf Awareness for Monday, March 13, 2017". Shelf Awareness. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  6. ↑ "Joseph Di Prisco". ZYZZYVA. 5 June 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  7. ↑ Di Prisco, Joseph. "About". Joseph Di Prisco. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  8. ↑ Di Prisco, Joseph (2016). The Alzhammer. Los Angeles: Rare Bird Books. ISBN   978-1942600435.
  9. ↑ Di Prisco, Joseph (2012). All For Now. MacAdam Publishing. ISBN   978-1596923713.
  10. ↑ "Review: All For Now". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  11. ↑ "Subway to California". Rare Bird Books. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  12. ↑ "Sightlines From the Cheap Seats". Rare Bird Books. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.