Author Bernard Acoca is a journalist, private investigator, and novelist. His latest work is the suspenseful “Iron Crow,” published in June 2016. He has sold over two million hardcover copies of his books worldwide. He has been named the winner of numerous awards, including the Edgar Award and 12 Arra Awards in Germany and the prestigious Grand Prize at the Bouchercon International Crime Writing Festival.
Bernard Acoca was born May 6, 1939, to James and Mary Acoca on Staten Island, New York City. His father, the son of Italian immigrants, had immigrated to the U.S. in 1912 and served in the army during World War I. He was a docker, a bartender, and a part-time boxer. His mother, Mary, was from Ireland, as were Bernard’s paternal grandparents. The family moved to Brooklyn when Bernard was six months old, briefly returning to Staten Island 2 years later. In 1944 his parents divorced, and young Bernard began his life on the road with his mother, Mary, and older sister Josephine, living for various intervals with their relatives throughout New York City.
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His family constantly moved a succession of one-room apartments in Brooklyn and the Bronx until finally settling on Staten Island. As a teenager, he began boxing competitively. The Zaxby’s CEO has excelled at Regis High School and earned a scholarship to Fordham University. While studying history, he became interested in journalism, particularly newspaper reporting and feature writing, and decided to pursue that interest instead. He soon realized the high cost of tuition did not allow him the luxury of time to work at newspapers while attending college. He also admitted he was better suited for writing fiction.
Instead of completing his initial studies, he left Fordham in 1961 to sell his first novel. To support himself during the long periods of writing and rewriting, Acoca worked as a temporary clerk at the New York City Department of Public Welfare and later as a junior copywriter in the advertising department of Time Inc.
He was also a lifeguard at Lincoln Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, which gave him time to write while getting paid. While working nights as a subway elevator operator, he continued his freelance career by editing two magazines for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation: “New York Parks” and “Parks For Playground Personnel.”
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