John Difelice

John DiFelice was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His childhood was filled with hilarious adventures, colourful characters, and he’s not allowed to write about any of it because his parents, like Holden Caulfield’s, would have two hemorrhages apiece if he revealed anything remotely personal. Instead, he learned to make things up, which led to his love of writing fiction

He had a short story published in a collection called South Philly Fiction (Don Ron Books, 2013). His debut novel, American Zeroes, for a time was #1 in the Kindle Store in the Satire category.

What motivated you to pursue a career in writing?

When I was young, I was like the main character in Tamasha, except that I was proficient in math. I enjoyed writing fiction more than anything else, but I chose to study chemical engineering in college because it had the highest entry-level salary at the time. During my freshman year English class, my instructor and her advisor liked my writing enough to ask me if I’d consider leaving the engineering school and join the English department. But even at the age of seventeen, I had a pragmatism that ran deep and informed all my decisions. I politely declined the offer, but in the years that followed, I always wondered if I made the right decision. Despite the financial security my choice had granted (I eventually left chemical engineering and started a twenty-year career in IT), the desire to express myself creatively only increased with time. I began writing for the stage, which I did for ten years, and then I wrote short stories. American Zeroes is my first novel.

What inspired you to choose a sensitive topic of a post 9/11 scenario for your first novel?