I was born in South Philadelphia and as a long time Phillies fan learned the value of wit and humor in dealing with yearly disappointments.  I was a creative writing major in college and received an MA in Literature.  My favorites were Fielding, Dickens, and Melville.  As an inner-city high school teacher, I observed how failure in school crippled the hopes of students.  Later, after a Ph.d. I took a position at UCLA where I published a number of books and articles dealing mostly with kids at risk and their struggles to survive the institutions set up to serve them.  Again, humor became one way of survival. The amusing way students and teachers deal with the contradictions of schooling led to an early publication of a trade book entitled Education is a Shuck. Last year I published a book entitled First Year in an Urban High School with my son Paul.  Since my retirement from the university I have been writing humorous fiction, mostly about how losers survive in a tough world, and sometimes prevail. Finding it difficult to attract an agent or publisher I wrote a short novel about a frustrated writer who kills agents and publishers.  That too is a comedy, with a slight edge of bitterness.            

From the mean streets of South Philly to a professorship at a top university in a vivacious city. Lots of articles, six books,and a beautiful wife who made teaching at UCLA a choice piece of luck.