John Dufresne

American writer whose acclaimed first novel, "Louisiana Power and Light" and it's 2002 sequel, "Deep in the Shade of Paradise," are set in Louisiana. A former altar boy in Worcester, John painted houses, did landscaping and ran a drop-in center for troubled teens at the Worcester Crisis Center, with a brief first marriage during his time there. The eldest of four kids, he graduated from college in 1970, then spent seven years as a social worker. While at the Crisis Center, he helped start a literary magazine, "The Little Apple," which he and some young people wrote. Feeling whole when writing, he enrolled in a graduate creative writing program at the U. of Arkansas, where he learned to develop a plot in his story line. After earning his master's, he took a job at Northeast Louisiana U. in Monroe teaching English and writing. He and his second wife, Cindy Chinelly, lived in an apartment in Monroe, where he learned to love Louisiana. Their son Tristan was born in 1987 and two years later they moved to Dania Beach, FL, where he and Cindy both taught at Florida U. Link to Wikipedia biography