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Bio


(Bio) (Third person)

Peter Dabbene is a Hamilton, New Jersey-based writer. His poetry has been featured in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Zillah, The Journal of New Jersey Poets, Apple Valley Review, White Leaf Review, California Quarterly, Adagio Verse Quarterly, Ampersand Poetry Journal, Hinge Online, Griffin, BluePrintReview, ByLine, Bogg, Red River Review, SLAB, Rokovoko, Cantaraville, Astropoetica, Quantum Poetry Magazine, and Bread and Lightning. He has published two story collections, Prime Movements and Glossolalia, as well as a novel, Mister Dreyfus' Demons, and a collection of poetry, Optimism. He has also published a collection of humorous exchanges with spam e-mailers called Spamming the Spammers (with Dieter P. Bieny).


Some of his stories can be found online at www.mcsweeneys.net, www.piginpoke.com, www.defenestrationmag.net, www.eyeshot.net, www.quantummuse.com, www.yankeepotroast.org, and  www.wordriot.org,  in print in US 1, American Drivel Review, North Atlantic Review, Universe Pathways, Riversedge, Writer’s Post Journal, Cantaraville, in the music anthology Tribute to Orpheus and recorded in the audiozine Scyweb Bem. He has also reviewed books for The Hamilton Post, Ewing Observer, and Lawrence Gazette  newspapers, and is currently a columnist for the Hamilton Post (his columns are viewable at www.mercerspace.com) and a reviewer for Foreword Reviews (www.forewordreviews.com) and BlueInk Review (www.blueinkreview.com). Several of his plays have been performed in New Jersey and Philadelphia venues. His comic book work can be seen in Futurequake, and in the graphic novel ARK, illustrated by Ryan Bayliss.

 

(Bio) (Casual, with tangents)

You know what I hate? Third person biographies. Sure, it’s flattering to think that someone is out there, carefully compiling a list of all your published work and updating it as needed, so that the world can be duly impressed and not miss any of your important scribblings. But you know who writes those bios? Not the journals and magazines that publish the work. The writers write their own bios. Which makes the third person biography (both writing it and reading it) a little bit pretentious, and very, very strange. Even worse is when the author tries to deflect criticism by being humorous. (“Look, I’m poking fun at this!”) Examples:

Peter Dabbene lives in Hamilton, New Jersey and likes himself.

Peter Dabbene is an alias.

Peter Dabbene hates frogs.

Peter Dabbene loves frogs.

Three of these sentences are based on actual bios I have read. Two are true.

Will I, as a matter of principle, forswear the third person biography (as written by the first person)? Will I refuse to name-drop and plug my projects as requested?

Will I avoid cumbersome lists of prior publications and come and go stealthily, like a ninja mouse? Will I, in the future, avoid lengthy explanations of pet peeves on my website? Will I seek the obvious (but isn’t it just TOO darn obvious) solution of simply providing a FIRST-person biography?
Probably not.

 

 

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