Just Who Is Vic Fortezza, Anyway?

   I grew up speaking English and Sicilian dialect. Don’t know which came first. At St. Mary’s I was “the boy in the third row staring into space,” tuning out the Principal, who was visiting our class. I would sleepwalk through my first 30 years, baffled by the bittersweet mystery of life. Heck, I still may be sleepwalking. At Lafayette High School I was #72, right guard on the ‘66 team, the weakest link on a fine squad. At Western Michigan University I faked my way to a degree in Education. I hid behind the persona of football coach for six years, until a November night when I began a novel, Five Cents, imagining the plight of an average Vietnam veteran, not the psycho Hollywood version. That began a 20-year jag that produced nine novels, two screenplays, two plays and about 60 short stories, more than 50 of which have been published. I am fascinated by the theme of man struggling to live a good life in a world where temptation beckons at every turn. For four years I was a teacher’s aide at John Dewey High School, where I met a woman I still think about each day. I tended bar for a year, then worked at the Commodity Exchange for nearly 25 years, a square peg learning not to be afraid of the world amidst the screaming of traders out to score big. It was there that I met the one who got away. In 2000 I self-published Close to the Edge - ever wonder what makes someone go off the deep end? In 2008 Adjustments, which chronicles my football experiences, was published by my literary angel, Victoria Valentine, of Water Forest Press. In 2009 A Hitch in Twilight, inspired by my fascination with the work of Rod Serling and Alfred Hitchcock, was published by All Things That Matter Press. These days I promote/sell my books on the streets of Brooklyn, and continue to submit manuscripts.

Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/

Vic's Short Story Collection: http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb

Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6

Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h

Vic's Word Press blog:  http://vicfortezza.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php