Stephen Siciliano

Stephen Siciliano was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina and raised on Long Island, New York. He began his professional writing career at the Los Angeles-based Apparel News Group in 1983. Following a year of journalistic apprenticeship, he signed on with Washington D.C.-based Bureau of National Affairs Inc., in 1985. During eight years Mr. Siciliano served as the information agency's L.A. correspondent covering environmental, financial and labor issues. Meanwhile, he developed a parallel literary career. In 1986 he published a poem, "The Six Prostitutes of Comayagua" in the L.A. Weekly. In 1987, he published the short story "Sammy Beneath the Freeway," in L.A. Style magazine, which applied magical realism to the Latino gang world. That same year he published another poem, "Lament for Jose Carrasco", an homage to a Chilean journalist murdered by the Pinochet regime, in "The Guild Reporter" -national organ for The Newspaper Guild. In 1988, he edited the fanzine "READ," which spawned a group of poets known as The Elegant Mob and two series of poetry/happenings at Gorkys Cafe in Downtown L.A. and Zatars bar in Hollywood. Soon after, the poets produced his screenplay for the avant-garde feature film "Believe in Eve," which was accepted at the Leeds Film Festival, New York Film Fortnight, AFI/Los Angeles and won the Silver Medal for best feature at the Philadelphia Film Festival. In 1992, he wrote the screenplay "Lunches w/ Actresses" about a pair of unsavory step-sisters working at the film industry's margins and the middle-class guy who is ruined by them. Looking for something other than Hollywood to write about, he moved later that year to Málaga, Spain and composed the novel "Vedette, or Conversations with the Flamenco Shadows," which recounts the liberation of a young flamenco singer during a revolutionary takeover of her town at the Spanish Civil War's outset. He finished the book in 1994, along with a script adaptation, which won a grant from the European Community's media program in 1996, and was optioned by the producer of Spanish films, Esicma S.A. In the summer of 1994 he wrote the screenplay "Chasing Cuqui Molina," which spins the comic adventures of an English rocker and a Spanish Gypsy guitar player traveling through the newly integrated Europe in pursuit of an idealized woman. That same summer he prepared a special travel section on the region of Andalusia for "Newsweek International." In the autumn he traveled to Asturias, Spain where he wrote the screenplay "La Xana" (The Water Witch), in Spanish, treating the clash between modernity and tradition, using regional folklore to enrich his love tragedy. Meanwhile, Mr. Siciliano continued contributing poems to the literary gazette "La Estrella Vandalia" (The Vandal Star) in Seville for which he also wrote a series of articles under the pseudonym Camilo Berneri. Running out of money, he moved to Seville in the winter of 1995 and launched the urban weekly "La Otra Orilla" (The Opposite Shore), which covered political and cultural issues on the Sevillan right bank. During the summer of 1995, he settled on the Atlantic coast of Cadiz and penned the libretto "La Vara Magica" (The Magic Wand) in Spanish, based upon the life and work of a legendary local poet, Fernando Villalon, a prominent figure in the novel "Vedette." In the summer of 1996 he returned to Los Angeles and worked as a script reader for the United Talent Agency and Creative Artists Agency. He adapted Christopher Wren's African adventure novel, "Hacks," to the script form. In 1997, he wrote the screenplay "Un Mes Con Marife" (A Month with Marife), in Spanish, based upon real-life experience with squatters in Seville. Later that year he wrote the screenplay "Fool for Love," a romantic comedy that examines the true meaning of personal beauty and takes place in Manhattan during the opera season. In 1998, he wrote the screenplay "Kooks," based upon a David Bowie song of the same name, which tells of two urban gays suddenly forced to raise a 15-year old girl. The year of 1999-2000 was spent as managing editor of the "L.A. Downtown News," where he wrote on urbanism, theater, literature and politics. Mr. Siciliano did a brief stint at the "L.A. Business Journal" during the summer of 2000. Among his assignments at the journal were the Democratic National Convention and the Screen Actors Guild strike. He has appeared on KCRW radio's "Which Way L.A," and KNX's Business Hour. Readings of passages from his novel "Vedette" to the accompaniment of flamenco guitarist Omar Torrez have been aired on WBAI radio in New York and are available on a separate My Space page at http://www.myspace.com/omarscribe He is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and also the Society of Environmental Journalists In 2002, Mr. Siciliano finished a commission job for submission to Antonio Banderas' Green Moon Productions called "Golden Shadows." A second commission job for a noir feature-length thriller, "Hopscotch" was followed by the completion of a small-town feature-length drama entitled "Signs of Serenity (Based Upon Things Without Meaning)". A second novel, The Sidewalk Smokers Club is available for purchase or reading at http://sidewalksmokersclub.blogspot.com. He has a 50-piece collection of poems entitled "Spit in a Flower Pot (If You Must)." Vedette is available from online publisher iUniverse.com and at Amazon.com. There is almost nothing he cannot pretend to write about with authority. His popular blog, highwayscribery: Politics, Poetry and Prose, can be found at http://highwayscribery.blogspot.com/ An album of his own songs, "Ladybugs or Lovesongs," can be found at http://www.myspace.com/ladybugsorlovesongs