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Joseph Roccasalvo

A NATIVE NEW YORKER, JOSEPH GREW UP IN SHEEPSHEAD BAY, BROOKLYN.

He followed his graduate degrees in Philosophy, English Literature, and Theology by a Harvard PhD in Comparative Religion with a specialty in Buddhism.  Joseph has lived and taught in Boston, Bangkok, Chicago, and New York.  For over ten years he was associate professor at Chicago’s Loyola University and Fordham University’s Bronx and Lincoln Center campuses.  He was visiting professor at Columbia University in New York and Franklin University in Switzerland. 

Now engaged in graduate school mentoring and a part-time chaplaincy, he is also a fiction writer.  Five novels have ensued: Fire in a Windless Place, Chartreuse, Portrait of a Woman, The Odor of Sanctity, and The Devil’s Interval.  Two novellas, Beyond the Pale and The Powers That Be, were published as Double Entendre.  Three books of short stories followed: Outward Signs, The Mansions of Limbo, and Triple Sec; a play, Waging Waugh; and a memoir, As It Were.  All are available on Amazon.  In Mexico and the Virgin Islands, in Cambridge and New York, Joseph performed his rhymed version of Jesus’ life published as Gospel Limerick.  He has guided students in journalism and international studies at The New School for Social Research, and contributed essays to the New School’s newspaper in his online column, A Word to the Wise.  Forthcoming are two new books: three thrillers called Twists of Faith and a novella, Island of the Assassin. In progress is a novel called Alina in Ecstasy.