Please meet our Featured Writer of April 2012:
Gary F. Iorio
So, Mr. Iorio, what do you have to say for yourself?
Age? Location? All that basic stuff?
I’m sixty. Sixty with good health is a great age to be. My health is fine. I actually enjoy weight lifting, cycling and educating myself regarding nutrition. It’s not as boring as it sounds. Recently I discovered that Booker’s Small Batch Bourbon at 127 Proof has the same calories as the 80-proof stuff. You should always read labels and shop the perimeters of the grocery store and the top shelf at the liquor store. I live on Long Island, about 45 miles east of NYC, in the little suburban town of Islip. With the exception of the two years I spent in Iowa City in the mid-1970s I’ve always lived in New York. I’m a short train ride into the city, and I’ve actually had a day where I came out of one Broadway Show and ran into another. I dream of the day when I don’t have to own a car.
Yes, I’m a writer. I was encouraged by my mother to start writing and to tell stories at a very young age; probably 2nd or 3rd grade. Later, in high school, I was lucky enough to have two great English teachers. I was an English major at Hofstra University and I wrote short stories and edited a small literary magazine. At the University of Iowa I graduated with an MFA in fiction in 1976. My bio, to this point, is probably very similar to most of the readers and submitters to CRACK THE SPINE. . . . Then I went to law school and stopped writing. I’ve had my own law practice since 1985. In 2009 I began writing on a daily basis again and I’m proud of that. Now I belong to a very good playwriting group. I’ve completed two one-act-plays and the readings went well. When I take a break from writing plays I try to write poems, flash fiction, fiction and memoirs. I write because I like to entertain.
Your work in Crack the Spine
The best way for me to tell you about that story is to share this link: http://wewantedtobewriters.com/2012/04/gary-iorio-on-staying-in-the-writing-game/ Please copy and paste it in your browser. Or you can find it on my wall on Facebook. This link is an excellent source of info for today’s writers, MFA candidates, and teachers of creative writing.
I can’t believe this guy is 60, he writes and sounds like he has the enthusiasm of a much younger person. Maybe because he’s back to writing. And now I’ll have to read Lily Beach, love getting the clues from questions like this.
As a classmate of Mr. Iorio’s at Iowa, I was pretty sure he’d be one of the ones who kept at it – it took 30-plus years to be right about that, but who’s into nit-picking? What convinced me at the time that he was the real thing was the deep pleasure he took in coming up with a great line–there were quite a few of them–and the way he always plucked out those lines in other people’s work. His work was and is genuine and sharp and likable, and he writes exactly like himself. The line that the originals are standing in is a pretty short one, but he’s in it.