About The Author

 

Anthony DiFranco began as a writer of short stories, winning several national fiction awards, including two first prize awards for the year’s best short story from the Catholic Press Association, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship and grant, and an O. Henry Award.  He was also twice awarded fellowships and residencies at the MacDowell Colony.

One of his stories, “The Garden of Redemption” was purchased by Paramount Pictures and rendered as a feature length film starring Anthony LaPaglia, Embeth Davidtz, and Peter Firth.  This love story set during World War II still plays frequently on television.

DiFranco wrote several non-fiction young adult books for Dillon Press while seeking to master the larger and more complex form of the novel.  His first novel The Streets of Paradise, set during the period of mass immigration to America in the early 20th Century, was published by Bantam Books.  Bantam also published his second novel, Ardent Spring, set in Italy during the rise of the Fascist party in the inter-war period.  Both are intricately woven stories rich in historical detail.  Both were mass market releases which sold well.

DiFranco’s subsequent novels are more ambitious, one-of-a-kind books, each with a different voice.  The Girl in the Trunk is a crime novel/murder mystery that has earned praise from professional investigators for its realism.  Its setting is the working class neighborhoods around Fordham University in the Bronx, New York City, and its voice is a blend of the lyrical and the hard-boiled.  Red Linen is set in a community college on Long Island, and tells the story of the interwoven lives of a professor, his students, and the women in his life.  In a meditative, highly personal voice, it tells of the struggle to recover happiness, faith, and love during difficult times.  In My Blood: Confessions of a Ballroom Dancer, the newest novel, is a story about falling in love in the zone beyond the halfway point in life.  Written in a memoir-like voice, it also gives a fully textured picture of the world of ballroom dancing.

In between these novels, DiFranco turned to independent filmmaking, as a writer/ director/ producer/ editor of feature movies.  Three feature titles resulted: Scope of Desire, Our Souls to Keep, and Happy Ever After.  All have been exhibited numerous times at festivals and special screening events.  All have been noted for their sensitive writing and story quality.

DiFranco has spoken countless times to book clubs, school groups, and writers’ conference audiences, and has given radio and television interviews on writing and filmmaking.  He has a Ph.D. in English and has held a professorship at a Long Island college throughout his writing career.