Offthebookshelf.com
Philip Vassallo
Philip Vassallo has designed, delivered, and supervised writing seminars in corporate, government, and academic environments since 1984. He has taught writing for Cornell University, Rutgers University, Kean University, Centenary College, and Middlesex County College.
Vassallo is the author of the following books:
How to Write Fast Under Pressure
The Art of E-Mail Writing
The Art of On-the-Job Writing
Person to Person: Essays from Two Centuries
The Inwardness of the Outward Gaze: Learning and Teaching through Philosophy
Questions Asked of Dying Dreams: Four Short Plays
Like the Day I Was Born: 40 Poems, 40 Places, 40 Days
American Haiku
His Words on the Line, a column on effective writing appearing in "ETC: A Review of General Semantics" since 1992, is the seed of his popular blog of the same name. He has also published three studies on education and more than two hundred essays and poems in print and electronic sources throughout the world. He has written for numerous literary and educational publications, and he has reviewed or contributed to books by McGraw-Hill, St. Martin's Press, and Simon & Schuster. Fourteen of his short plays have been produced Off-Broadway and elsewhere, five have been published, and he has won or been a finalist in state and national playwriting competitions. For many of his clients, he has written or edited newsletters, editorials, speeches, brochures, proposals, and procedural manuals.
Vassallo holds a B.A. in English from Baruch College, an M.S. in education from Lehman College, and a doctorate in educational theory from Rutgers University
All Books By This Author:
- Like the Day I Was Born: 40 Poems, 40 Places, 40 Days
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This collection of poetry, Philip Vassallo's first, spans 20 years of experience in 40 different locations. The connection between poem and place in this volume is not always apparent. For that matter, among the many proofs of the duality of human nature is our ability to be present or to transcend our environment. Vassallo sees people often isolated, desperate, trapped in a mechanized world, and in conflict with nature or themselves. But underlying each poem is a reaffirmation of the will to live.
- Genres: Poetry
- American Haiku
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American Haiku, a collection from four decades, captures the essence of experience by poet, playwright, and essayist Philip Vassallo. By adding a title to the traditional untitled three-line form, Vassallo brings a uniquely American perspective of angst, longing, and hope.
- Genres:
- Questions Asked of Dying Dreams
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“Questions Asked of Dying Dreams adds up to a rousing maiden voyage for new playwright Vassallo and a challenging and enjoyable evening of theater. … Cynical, sarcastic, funny, or angry, all four playlets are insightful and engaging—no mean feat—and each takes a hard look at life, their characters always questioning its meaning.” — Bob Coyne, Asbury Park Press Questions Asked of Dying Dreams is the umbrella title for four related one-acts: "What Do You Charge for a Cure?" (35 minutes), about a director of a clinical program for developmentally disabled individuals who confronts her professional and personal doubts as she deals with one of her clients and a new intake; "How Silent Do I Sound?" (15 minutes), about a bigoted, aging moving man who unexpectedly meets his new coworker and his own destiny; "Do I Bleed in the Dark" (25 minutes), about a homeless ex-boxer who has a final chance to make something meaningful of his life in his dying moments; and "Isn't This the Way You Wanted Me?" (25 minutes), about an embittered, frustrated wife who reassesses her marriage and life in light of her husband's remarkable transformation.
- Genres: Scripts
- Person to Person: Essays from Two Centuries
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In "Person to Person: Essays from Two Centuries," educator, poet, and playwright Philip Vassallo writes 26 essays on his abiding passions: theater, communication, society, literature, film, education, sports--often finding unique links between them. This collection spans the last decade of the twentieth and first decade of the twenty-first centuries, as the author worked as a reporter, columnist, professor, and artist for diverse organizations in the New York metropolitan area. In this volume, he writes on an impressive range of issues, including race relations, eating disorders, childcare, criminal law, school choice, the environment, cinema, playwriting, and literary biography. His line of thought varies as broadly as his interests and his conclusions can be surprising.
- Genres: Essays, General, Humanities, Language, Philosophy, Politics, Educational
