Joseph Di Prisco – författare

Integrity is not simply something that happens as a result of family stability, unconditional love, healthy genes, or good luck it emerges, if it does, because parents make it important and because they choose to exercise influence in this arena. Combining stories of children in their natural settings with compassionate, in-depth analysis and pragmatic counsel, Right from Wrong makes the promotion of integrity possible, feasible, indispensable. It shows parents how their use of praise and discipline, honesty, listening, and consequences will help foster integrity in young children, making them people whom we admire as well as people who are proud of themselves.

Simpsonistas: Tales from the Simpson Family Literary Project, Vol. 1 highlights brilliant work by associates of the Simpson Project: Joyce Carol Oates, Anthony Marra, T. Geronimo Johnson, Samantha Hunt, Lori Ostlund, Martin Pousson, Ben Fountain, and many others, including Simpson Fellows as well as young writers appearing for the first time in print. Johnson and Marra were Simpson Prize Winners; Fountain, Hunt, Ostlund, and Pousson were Prize Finalists.Simpsonistas is the anthology of the New Literary Project, which is committed to the proposition that storytelling is the foundation of a literate society: newliteraryproject.org.The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

The Fitzgeralds are buttressed by wealth and privilege, but they are also buffeted by crisis after crisis, many of their own creation. Even so, they live large, in love and in strife, wielding power, combating adversaries and each other. The Good Family Fitzgerald is a saga of money and ambition, crime and the Catholic Church, a sprawling, passionate story shaped against a background of social discord.Padraic Fitzgerald is the up-from-nothing, aging patriarch whose considerable business interests appear anything but legitimate, but he has bigger problems than law enforcement. A widower, Paddy becomes enmeshed with a young woman who will force him to re-examine his cardinal assumptions. Meanwhile, he has cultivated thorny relationships with his four children, all of whom struggle over the terms of connection with their father. Anthony—oldest son, principled criminal defense attorney, designated prince of the family—and his cherished Francesca are devastated by tragedy. In the aftermath, Frankie comes to play a vital role in Fitzgerald lore. Philip is a charismatic Catholic priest spectacularly torn between his lofty ideals and aspirations and his all-too-human flaws and longings. Matty has wandered aimlessly, but once he finds his purpose, he precipitates turmoil in all quarters. Colleen, the youngest, is a seeker who styles herself the outsider and the conscience of the clan. Her hands are full, as no Fitzgerald is left untested or unscathed, and by the end the whole family, as well as those venturing into their realm, will be stunned into illumination.

Simpsonistas: Tales from the Simpson Literary Project, Vol. 2 highlights brilliant work by associates of the Simpson Project: Joyce Carol Oates, Anthony Marra, Laila Lalami, Sigrid Nunez, and many others, including Simpson Fellows as well as young writers appearing for the first time in print.Simpsonistas is the anthology of the New Literary Project, which is committed to the proposition that storytelling is the foundation of a literate society: newliteraryproject.org.The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

Simpsonistas: Tales from the Simpson Literary Project, Vol. 3 highlights brilliant work by associates of the Simpson Project: Joyce Carol Oates, Anthony Marra, Laila Lalami, Sigrid Nunez, and many others, including Simpson Fellows as well as young writers appearing for the first time in print.Simpsonistas is the anthology of the New Literary Project, which is committed to the proposition that storytelling is the foundation of a literate society: newliteraryproject.org.The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

Simpsonistas: Vol. 4 begins at the onset of creation. Conversations and references dot the pages of authors acclaimed and emerging—with many of the stories weaving together sensation and interpretation. We are told that “There is creative power in a pause,” and following the “plague year” of Simpsonistas Vol. 3, Vol. 4 is a rebirth. In it, Lorne M. Buchman quotes Joseph Di Prisco, Alex Ullman reflects on a fellowship at McKinley High School, and students have their poems juxtaposed with those of their teachers. The volume discusses the craft of creative writing through an analysis of entry points, and then does what the best books always proclaim to do—show, not tell.Other celebrated authors found in these pages include: Danielle Evans, Joyce Carol Oates, Lauren Groff, Daniel Mason, Anthony Marra, Lise Gaston, and Lorne M. Buchman. In addition, several New Literary Project luminaries shine within the book, such as Jessica Laser, Noah Warren, Ian S. Maloney, and Diane Del Signore. The New Literary Project promotes storytellers and storytelling across the generations, and across a tremendous spectrum: from incarcerated young men and women to high school-age students to creative writers teaching high school to distinguished mid-career authors. Simpson Fellows from UC Berkeley lead workshops for fledgling writers, Jack Hazard Fellows receive $5,000 in support of an ongoing writing project, and the annual Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient receives an award of $50,000 in support of a burgeoning career.

My Last Resume: New and Collected Poems showcases an exquisite body of poetry spanning more than five decades. While Joseph Di Prisco, a true Renaissance man, has achieved success across genres, his lifetime of work showcased in the long-awaited My Last Resume is proof that, for Joe, it's always been poetry.

Brother Stephen dies suddenly. That's when things get complicated. Is Stephen's death his wake-up call? This possibility slowly dawns on him. Soon, though, he is behind the wheel of a Prius, driving through his afterlife, listening to himself being interviewed on NPR. "It's just like high school, Terry. You know, maybe it is high school," he tells her, in the interview, as she questions him about lawsuits filed by students who claimed to have been molested by pedophile Brothers. As an administrator of his Roman Catholic religious order, he was caught in the middle of these heartbreaking cases. In fact, the lawsuit he was dealing with the moment he died is one that strikes especially close to his heart. He once knew the plaintiff--he once knew her very well--but he also knew the Brother who is named in the lawsuit. Now that he's dead, he's more determined than ever to get to the truth. He spends his afterlife unraveling this terrible mystery, learning more about the plight of the survivor and that of the accused, but the biggest mystery he faces is one about himself.

Mikey is history. He's got what he calls the Alzhammer. A once-powerful mob boss, he is seriously slipping--losing control of his crew and of his mind. His business is sideways, his rivals are coming for him, he's crazy forgetful, and it is a fact his parents suffered miserably with Alzheimer's. He refuses to ride diapered and drooling into the sunset. He is going to whack himself. Problem is, others are trying to whack him and rip off what's left of the family's business, which is different and which pisses him off--when he remembers. Meanwhile, his ex, Zayana, slips back into his life. She's been on the lam. Long ago, she hooked up with a rich, ruthless, and very married Senator who's concerned she might go public during election season, and he's prepared to do whatever it takes to eliminate her and save his image. Mikey decides to do the right thing for a change. They will hole up in the perfect hideaway--a shady, unlicensed nursing home near Vegas--until after the vote. Mikey's feelings for Z resurface, but even so, he figures once she and her son, who might be his, are safe, he will finally kill himself in peace.Until then, he must confront his would-be killers, the Senator, and the lunatic who cracks the whip at the three-ring-circus home called Over the Rainbow.

In 1961, the Di Priscos fled Brooklyn—and the FBI. The father was a gambler and bookmaker, and agents chased him into the Long Island woods because he was implicated in police corruption. At thirty-five he escaped to a strange place called California, where his wife and two of her four sons joined him. One member of the family graduated high school, and he would make books of a different sort.Joe didn’t seem called to a life of crime, but evidence is mixed. Once he was Brother Joseph in a Catholic novitiate, but later he was named prime suspect in a racketeering investigation. During Vietnam he seized his college administration building, and then played blackjack around the world, staked by big-money backers. He managed Italian restaurants with laughable ineptitude, but also did graduate study and taught for twenty years. Eventually Joe buries his unstable, manipulative, and beautiful mother and his brothers, including his heroin-addicted younger brother. Later, he cares for his father with Alzheimer’s. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Subway to California recounts Joe’s battles with personal demons, bargains struck with angels, and truces with family in this richly colorful tale that reads like great fiction.

Enlisted by megalomaniac publisher Myron Beam, Sibella—junior editor extraordinaire—recounts the trials and tribulations of the San Francisco-based literary darling Hard Rain Publishing all the way from its improbable rise through its seemingly inevitable freefall. The whip smart, wise-cracking, and surprisingly well-read Sibella navigates the mounting eccentricities of the house’s award-winning authors, slices up her oh-so-pretentious colleagues with her razor-sharp wit, and even manages to fish her publisher out of the pub long enough to keep the whole ship afloat, all the while battling her ex-boyfriend’s meteoric success and the feintless infinity of the blank page.But when her boss acquires the artless and arduous 900-page debut The Adventures of Calypso O’Kelly, their star author Figgy Fontana—possibly, maybe, kinda sorta—dies, and a team of con artists take aim at Myron Beam, it’s up to Sibella, her endlessly outmatched editor in chief, and a former female pornstar—no, really—to return Hard Rain and its hard-boozing, hapless publisher to their former glory.Part tell all, part mystery, and part coming-of-age novel, Sibella & Sibella is a biting look at the world of publishing from a reluctant witness who pulls no punches with anyone. Least of all herself.