Background
Paul Lisicky was born in 1959, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He is a son of Anton (an electrical engineer) and Anne (a homemaker and vocalist; her maiden name was Homan).
2017
Paul at the presentation of his book in 2017.
2018
Paul with his fan at the bookstore in 2018.
2020
Paul with his new book "Later".
4501 N Charles St, Baltimore, MD 21210
Paul studied at Loyola College Maryland in 1979 - 1980.
New Brunswick, NJ, United States
Paul studied at Rutgers University, he obtained Bachelor of Arts in 1983 and Master of Arts in 1986.
Iowa City, IA 52242
Paul studied at the University of Iowa, Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1990.
1750 Kresson Rd, Cherry Hill, NJ 08003
Paul studied at Cherry Hill East High School until 1977.
Provincetown, Massachusetts, United States
Paul is a member of the Fine Arts Work Center.
("The Burning House is an achingly lovely novel about the ...)
"The Burning House is an achingly lovely novel about the things that bind us together in this life and the things that pull us apart. Paul Lisicky has an extraordinary gift for exploring emotional nuance and the rhythms of desire. With this book, he yet again asserts himself as one of the select writers who continues to teach me about the complexities of the human heart."- Robert Olen Butler The new house ate up every square foot of its lot. Copper roofing, copper flashing, copper downspouts: every last detail crying out, notice me, notice me, keep up with me. Exactly the kind of house Joan would have despised, with good reason. In this captivating family saga, narrator Isidore Mirsky finds his close-knit family and community suddenly coming apart. Facing the illness of family members and the loss of homes in a recession-plagued urban town, he also contends with an overwhelming new desire - his feelings for his wife's sister. The Burning House finds its narrator at his most vulnerable, and explores what it means to be a good man amidst chaos.
https://www.amazon.com/Burning-House-Paul-Lisicky/dp/0981968783/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=Paul+Lisicky&qid=1584363261&sr=8-4
2011
(In The Narrow Door, Paul Lisicky creates a compelling col...)
In The Narrow Door, Paul Lisicky creates a compelling collage of scenes and images drawn from two long-term relationships, one with a woman novelist and the other with his ex-husband, a poet. The contours of these relationships shift constantly. Denise and Paul, stretched by the demands of their writing lives, drift apart, and Paul's romance begins to falter. And the world around them is frail: environmental catastrophes like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, and local disturbances make an unsettling backdrop to the pressing concerns of Denise's cancer diagnosis and Paul's impending breakup. Lisicky's compassionate heart and resilience seem all the stronger in the face of such searing losses. His survival-hard-won, unsentimental, authentic-proves that in turning toward loss, we embrace life.
https://www.amazon.com/Narrow-Door-Memoir-Friendship-ebook/dp/B019N5WLY0/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Paul+Lisicky&qid=1584363261&sr=8-2
2016
(A stunning portrait of a community, identity, and sexuali...)
A stunning portrait of a community, identity, and sexuality by the critically acclaimed author of The Narrow Door When Paul Lisicky arrived in Provincetown in the early 1990s, he was leaving behind a history of family trauma to live in a place outside of time, known for its values of inclusion, acceptance, and art. In this idyllic haven, Lisicky searches for love and connection and comes into his own as he finds a sense of belonging. At the same time, the center of this community is consumed by the AIDS crisis, and the very structure of town life is being rewired out of necessity: What might this utopia look like during a time of dystopia? Later dramatizes a spectacular yet ravaged place and a unique era when more fully becoming one’s self collided with the realization that ongoingness couldn’t be taken for granted, and staying alive from moment to moment exacted absolute attention. Following the success of his acclaimed memoir, The Narrow Door, Lisicky fearlessly explores the body, queerness, love, illness, community, and belonging in this masterful, ingenious new book.
https://www.amazon.com/Later-My-Life-Edge-World/dp/164445016X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Paul+Lisicky&qid=1584363219&sr=8-1
2020
(Paul Lisicky told "My book, Famous Builder, is an entirel...)
Paul Lisicky told "My book, Famous Builder, is an entirely different animal. I never expected to write a memoir, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become increasingly interested in the dramas of memory, the project of claiming a fluid self on the page. Famous Builder is a collection of shorter works about growing up in southern New Jersey during the sixties and seventies, in a burgeoning suburban township named after its flamboyant shopping mall. The individual pieces deal with self-invention, class, artifice, success, the aching for fame - all those things that shape American Life, but we’re not supposed to admit to participating in. In the largest sense, it’s a book about confronting shame in one’s self, one’s family and neighbors, and examining the social structures we erect to resist it. I hope the pieces help the reader challenge received notions of identity, through looking at the complex forces that contribute to how we perform ourselves in the world.''
https://www.amazon.com/Famous-Builder-Paul-Lisicky-ebook/dp/B013P2ESSO/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=Paul+Lisicky&qid=1584363261&sr=8-6
Paul Lisicky was born in 1959, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He is a son of Anton (an electrical engineer) and Anne (a homemaker and vocalist; her maiden name was Homan).
Paul spent the better part of his childhood studying piano, theory and composition, voice, guitar, and started writing music by the time he was ten. Paul studied at Cherry Hill East High School until 1977. He wrote dozens and dozens of songs during his high school years, filling up spiral-bound notebooks with little choral pieces, pop songs, settings of responsorial psalms that his church choir performed. Oddly enough, he wasn’t terribly engaged by literature as a younger person. Paul read the books that were assigned for English class, but the components of language didn’t get under his skin the way a compelling harmonic movement did. Perhaps he only had enough energy for one creative endeavor at a time. So he went to college thinking he was going to be a composer. He attended Loyola College, Baltimore in 1979-1980, Rutgers University (a bachelor's degree in 1983, a master's degree in 1986) and University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Master of Fine Arts in 1990. Paul took a creative writing workshop one semester.
Paul Lisicky has been a freelance musician since 1974. In 1983-1985, he worked as an assistant at Rutgers University in Camden. Since 1983 he began to write books. He was a documentation analyst in Premier Systems, Wayne in 1987-1988, a teaching assistant in the University of Iowa in 1988-1990, an office clerk in the Fine Arts Work Center in 1992, assistant manager in the Pennsylvania Company in 1993-1995, writer-in-residence in the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in 1998-1999, creative writing instructor in the University of Houston in 1998-2000, associate Master of Fine Arts faculty in the Antioch University in 2000 and creative writing instructor in the Sarah Lawrence College in 2001. Paul published his first book ''Famous Builder'' in 2002.
Paul is the author of ''The Narrow Door,'' ''Unbuilt Projects,'' ''The Burning House,'' ''Famous Builder,'' and ''Lawnboy.'' His works have appeared in The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Conjunctions, Fence, The New York Times, Ploughshares, Tin House and in many other magazines and anthologies. He has taught in the creative writing programs at Cornell University, New York University, Rutgers-Newark, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Paul was an instructor at several writer's conferences, including the Fine Arts Work Center Summer Program, Iowa Summer Writing Festival, Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, The Loft and Cranbrook Writers Retreat. He is a past resident of several artist colonies including Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony, and Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Paul is currently an Associate Professor in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden. He is the editor of StoryQuarterly and serves on the Writing Committee of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. His sixth book, ''Later,'' forthcoming from Graywolf Press in March 2020.
Paul is the author of anthologies, including "Flash Fiction,'' "Best American Gay Fiction 2'' and ''Graywolf Forum 5: The Place of Self Grayw.'' He is also the author of fiction and essays for periodicals, including Boulevard, Overview of Sonora, Overview of Mississippi, A & U, Overview of Santa Monica, Quarter West, Gulf Coast, Carolina Quarter and Overview of the Black Warrior.
(A stunning portrait of a community, identity, and sexuali...)
2020(In The Narrow Door, Paul Lisicky creates a compelling col...)
2016("The Burning House is an achingly lovely novel about the ...)
2011(Paul Lisicky told "My book, Famous Builder, is an entirel...)
Quotations:
“Though music’s no longer the central focus of my creative life, there’s a definite connection between that world and the books I’m writing. When I’m constructing sentences, I can’t help but think of musical phrases.”
“Obviously, you can’t do with the sentence what the performing musician can do with the phrase, but I’m deeply concerned with the contours and cadences of language. And I’d love for my writing to be as emotionally liquid and resonant as the most lasting music.”
Paul's partner was the writer Mark Doty. They got married in 2008 and divorced in 2013.