Robert Michael Congemi was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised there and on Long Island. He has long been attracted to ideas describing life as absurdest and indeterminate, but has also held out for the possibility that these ideas are not necessarily correct.
Further, he is interested in the attempts of people to bring meaning and beauty into their lives, as well as resistance to what they feel is an unacceptable fate. Congemi teaches at the State University of New York’s Empire State College, where he has been a professor and primary mentor since 1973. He believes he is the longest continuously serving full time professor at Empire State College, if not of the State University itself. He has also taught at other SUNY colleges, in addition to Pace University, where he taught from 1968 to 1990 as adjunct full professor, and New York’s State Policy academy.
Robert Michael Congemi recently received the SUNY/ESC award “Scholar Across The College” for 2012-2013. This award is based on his teaching, mentoring and writing, and will involve delivering readings across New York State of his fiction as well as workshops about the writing of fiction.
Robert Michael Congemi 