Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Where—Waltham, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—Fordham University
• Currently—lives in Northhampton, Massachusetts
Anthony Giardina is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and playwright. Anthony Giardina started his professional career as an actor. He switched to playwriting, and eventually began writing novels.
His work is particularly influenced by American culture in the 1950s. He was born in 1950 and grew up on a street in Waltham, Massachusetts, a largely Italian and Irish working class "sleeper" suburb of Boston on the trolley line to Cambridge. The protagonist's childhood neighborhood and schools in his book, Recent History, were largely modeled on Waltham.
According to the author, Recent History (2001) was marketed toward the "gay market." Though Giardina himself is not gay, he possesses a remarkable ability to express the internal dialogue and emotional motivations of a diverse range of characters.
Giardina's plays have been produced in New Haven, New York City, and Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to publications such as the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Esquire, and Harper's. His books include Men With Debts (1984), A Boy's Pretensions (1988), The Country of Marriage (stories, 1998), Recent History (2001), and White Guys (2006). His newest novel, Norumbega Park, was released in 2012.
Teaching
He has held teaching positions at Mount Holyoke College, the University of Rochester the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the University of Texas, Giardina currently teaches at Smith College.
Anthony Giardina says of his writing:
When I write fiction, I become the character I'm writing about, just as an actor becomes a character he's playing. You use parts of yourself, people you have known, things that have happened to you, but you're always aware that these things are being used to create a persona that's distinctly not you. Otherwise it wouldn't be any fun. (Author bio from Wikipedia.)