Writer
Welcome to the website! I'm John Paul. I'm a fiction writer who likes stories that take you in unexpected directions, and I'm a fan of characters with depth along with worlds that seem to keep going on after we've stopped reading them. Ideally, I accomplish this in my own writing, so if that interests you, keep on scrolling and see what you can find! Also, because I love stories: here a some of my favorites: The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, One Piece by Eichiro Oda, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, and whatever's next on my reading queue (right now that's The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik). Also, "Sonny Blues" by James Baldwin is now forever locked into my head.
Bio
If you want to use my bio for some "official business," here it is: John Paul Cacioppo earned a BA in Creative Writing at the University of Iowa. Right now, he's housed in Brooklyn where he is pursuing an MFA in Fiction at The Writer's Foundry at St. Joseph's University, but he has his home roots in Miami, FL. He's working on a novel that involves the late 1960s NYC mafia, but he likes to dabble with all sorts of stories.
Current Projects
All I Can Offer Are Complications: This is a multi-generational story that goes through 600 years of births within a single-family line. This is currently coming out one "birth" at a time, monthly in my newsletter.
Secret Project 1: So I'm not going to spoil this, but for this project, I've had to research the Big Five Mafia Families from New York City, the progression of social movements in the late 1960s, and also (embarrassingly) phone booths around the city. Right now, I'm editing this.
Secret Project 2: For this project, I need to start research on the law and the criminal justice system during the 1980s, what blood banks looked like at that same time, and how DNA samples "work". This one I've written some snippets on and have met the characters, but it's still a baby idea, honestly.
Secret Project 3: As for this project, I've been starting to dive into death rituals (religious and non-religious), spirits, etc. I've even gone to a thing called a Death Cafe which was pretty fun. Like the 2nd secret project, this is still being developed, but I'd say that this is farther along.
Miscellaneous: Throwing completed stories out into the ether of lit mags, scribbling little poems, and generally stirring up a ruckus.
View all stories on my site