DELANEY, Edward J. 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born 1957, in Fall River, MA. Education: Fairfield University, B.S. (finance), 1979; Boston University, M.S. (mass communications), 1982.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Roger Williams University, One Old Ferry Road, Bristol, RI 02809. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator, journalist, and author. Denver Post, Denver, CO, staff writer; Colorado Springs Gazette, Colorado Springs, CO, columnist. Taught at Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs; Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI, associate professor of communications.

WRITINGS:

The Drowning and Other Stories, Carnegie Mellon University Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 1999.

Warp & Weft (novel), Permanent Press (Sag Harbor, NY), 2004.

Also contributor to magazines, including Atlantic Monthly, Providence Journal, and Chicago Tribune Magazine.

SIDELIGHTS:

Like many journalists, Edward J. Delaney eventually turned his writing skills to fiction. His debut collection, The Drowning and Other Stories, included nine stories of "credible, plainspeaking characters" whose past mistakes "lend their present lives a sad irony," according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. In one, an ex-con is himself a victim of a crime that threatens his new, legitimate livelihood. In another, a delinquent troublemaker at a crime scene gets a foretaste of his future death at the hands of police officers. In the title story, a former priest finds a new vocation and a new life when he flees his native Ireland after he hurriedly disposes of a constable's dead body. The result, in the words of the Publishers Weekly reviewer, is a "quietly triumphant collection."

Warp & Weft, Delaney's first novel, centers on three textile workers in a working-class New England town. Young Dominic quits high school at age sixteen to work in the cavernous mill, where he encounters Machado, a middle-aged immigrant from the Azores, and Carey, a "lifer" striving to become foreman. Long, monotonous hours broken by everyday complaints against management and often trivial tests of manliness fill the pages, yet "Delaney's evocation of the quotidian is affecting, and his empathy is evident on every page," according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. At the same time, found a Kirkus Reviews contributor, "Delaney writes in an understated, almost neutral tone that evokes the time and place without begging the reader's sympathy or indulgence."