Welcoming Poet Ken DiMaggio and Producer Paul La Rosa

Ken DiMaggio’s most recent chapbook, American Gothics won the 2011 Darkling Publications Chapbook Competition. His poems have appeared in Main Street Rag, Illuminations, Plainsongs, Floyd Country Moonshine, and two will soon be published in The New York Quarterly, one of which is about the Boston Red Sox. Poems and Stories from the Blue Collar Book of the Dead, his first chapbook, was published by Scars Publications.   

    Italian Americana has published his short story, The Day Frank Sinatra Soothed the Savage Beast while Religious Cards, will be published in a forthcoming issue. The same journal will publish his academic article, Leave the Gun, Take the Cannolis: How Machiavell's The Prince Has Influenced the Gangster in Modern Film and Literature, a look at how the political theories of this Italian Renaissance text have helped influenced popular works such as Mario Puzo's The Godfather, and the film, A Bronx Tale.

        He has a passion for travel, and recently visited Mongolia; he is a Professor of Humanities at Capital Community College in Hartford, Connecticut.


Of Paul LaRosa’s Leaving Story Avenue, My journey from the projects to the front page, Ken Auletta writes, “…in snappy prose, LaRosa sprinkles wisdom about New York, the pull of peers and of family, the ambition and pride that propels a working class kid to succeed, and a portrait of the zany New York Daily News newsroom that is one part exhilaration, and one part Front Page.”

    LaRosa is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years experience in print and television. For nearly 20 years, he’s been a successful producer for the CBS News magazine “48 Hours.” He’s written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and has authored four previous non-fiction books.

    LaRosa got his start as a copyboy and newspaper reporter at The New York Daily News. At that time, The News was still the largest circulating newspaper in the country but it was in the last, outrageous and often hilarious, gasp of The Front Page era. Reporters wallowed in a swirl of alcohol, hookers and bad behavior but none of it stopped them from delivering an electric and engaging paper every day. LaRosa, a naïf from the public housing projects, trapped in a Tabloid World, quickly adapted. As a reporter, he had a front-row seat to one of the most harrowing five-year periods in New York City history: the city’s brush with bankruptcy, the terror reign of Son of Sam, the blackout riots, and the murder of John Lennon. www.paullarosa.com

    The reading takes place Saturday, May 12, 2011, 5:45 p.m. to 7:45 p.m., at the Cornelia St. Café, 29 Cornelia Street, NYC, (212-989-9319). The evening starts with Open Mic readings of five minutes each. Since 1991, the organization has given voice to writers through its Open Reading series at Cornelia St. Café every month.

For membership information, visit www.iawa.net

Contact: Maria Lisella

 (718-777-1178)

Authors Available for Interviews