Daniel Vollaro
Reservoir Life
Reservoir Life is a collection of personal essays about growing up in Northwestern New Jersey in the 1970s and 1980s. Tinged with nostalgia and longing for a boyhood lost to time, these stories also grapple with the present---political violence, the racial divide, xenophobia, climate change, religious extremism. Four essays from the collection have already been published--“The Lookout Tree” in Michigan Quarterly Review, "Gas Line" in Boomer Cafe, Steal This Book in The Smart Set, and ”Mythopoesis” in Missouri Review.
When the Music Stops
Essays from the land that COVID made. This collection reflects on life in the American suburbs during the pandemic, from a life during lockdown to my realizing that "everyone is a localist in a pandemic" to my failed quest to learn how many ventilators are owned by my local hospital. These essays reach beyond the current pathos of discomfort to wonder aloud what comes next. What lessons if any will we learn from the crisis, about our rampant consumerism, our relationship to the natural world, and how we value individual human lives?
White Butterfly
My next essay collection will revolve around the 400 letters my grandfather sent home from an island north of New Guinea when he was private in the army during World War II. What do the grandchildren of the “Greatest Generation” do with the world they bequeathed to us—a world that is both poignantly real and dissolving before our eyes? This collection moves back and forth through time to answer this question, interspersing letters, artwork, and sketches from my grandfather throughout.
