In the third-person:

John A. Lauricella is the lucky husband of Risa and grateful father of Daniel and Julia. Once he was an academic and taught writing, as well as American and British literatures, to undergraduates. Now he is a commercial freelance writer with delusions of producing a great American novel. His first novel, "Jason's Tapes," is searching for effective representation. His second novel, "Hunting Old Sammie," is well underway to the tune of 240 ms pages.

Some years ago he published "Home Games: Essays on Baseball Fiction" (Macfarland, 1999), a critical monograph that explores the rhetorical effects and aesthetic manifestations of baseball in American prose fiction. This book began as his doctoral dissertation at Cornell University, where he earned a Ph.D. in English Language & Literature in 1993. He completed his A.B. at Colgate University magna cum laude in 1983 and earned an M.F.A. at Cornell in fiction-writing in 1987. His other publishing credits are too trivial to mention.

He was born in Brooklyn. He grew up in New Jersey. Today he lives in Ithaca, New York. Well past the age at which baseball is feasible (or advisable), he plays golf when the glaciers recede.

My passion is ...

private.

I know too much about ...

shanking an iron; smother-hooking a drive; topping a 3-wood; three-putting from ten feet.

My parents always told me ...

"the world doesn't owe you a living."

My childhood ambition ...

died early.

My favorite memory ...

is not suitable for this forum.

Why I write ...

is a mystery and probably a symptom of a more serious psychic affliction.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Shakespeare's plays; biographies of Einstein; The Magic Mountain; Either/Or; A Writer's Diary; Zen Golf; Theory of the Novel; An American Tragedy; Be the Ball

My first job ...

was a cliche: delivering newspapers.

My best moment ...

is impossible to name. I've had so many.

My inspiration ...

like God, is unwilling to show its face.

Creative Writing > Novel Excerpts Novel excerpts: Work

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"Chapter 5: Put Money in Thy Purse"

It is proverbial to claim money as the root of all evil. I agree. A person short of funds is liable to try anything.

My improvised business is the anything I tried. Leaving its relative evil to the reader's judgment, I contend only that pornography is less reprehensible than theft or fraud. I was about to call it a victimless crime but in point of fact it is no crime at all. Provided its subjects are consenting adults, it is no more illegal than sex with a stranger, who might very well be rotten with disease. The safety of images cannot be de...

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