Dominick Bosco

I’ve been a writer since I was eight years old…

…when I won a brand new Robin Hood English bike by writing a single line of advertising copy for the Summit Drive-In on the Boston Post Road in Branford, Connecticut.

The drive-in is long gone to condos and offices but I actually still have the bike, in desperate need of restoration, in my garage.

The line that won the bike?  “I like the Summit Drive-in because you can’t hear the trains.”

It was my first blurb. Of course, I didn’t know it. I was just expressing my personal reason for preferring the Summit Drive-In to the other drive-in down the road, The Post, also long gone to big box retail. The main tracks between New York and Boston ran right behind the Post drive-in. Every time a train came through—and they came through a LOT in those days—the noise drowned out the sound of the movie. Very annoying.

The Summit was blissfully quiet by comparison. And there seemed to be fewer mosquitoes, too. The competition was situated in what was then called a swamp and would now be called wetlands. Mosquitoes are still called mosquitoes.

There was no one in my life to recognize that I had a spark of talent for ad writing. That came much later, after college teaching, magazine writing, and books, books, books.

I’m a graduate of the Famous Writer’s School at the University of Iowa. For a couple of years after receiving my MFA, I was director of the writing program at St.Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana. More accurately, I was the writing program. I taught writing, poetry, and literature classes. The nuns at St. Mary’s realized their mistake after only two years and let me go.

It was a gift.

Mark Bricklin, executive editor of Prevention, also had an unpleasant run-in with academia. He recognized a kindred spirit and hired me at Prevention Magazine, where I really learned to write. I was an editor at Prevention for four years.. That was the last full-time go-to-the-office job I ever had.

In addition to several books, I have written over 100 direct mail promotions for Rodale Books, Prevention Magazine, Men’s Health, Boardroom, Playboy, Runner’s World, The Week, and many others.

To find out about my books, go here. To view some samples of my ad copywriting, go here. When I wrote my pizza cookbook and built my pizza app for iPad, I discovered that I loved food photography and shooting and editing video. Video samples can be found here. And food photos here.