Look and Listen

Biography

Victor Penro was born and raised in metropolitan Cleveland, Ohio. Growing up in the suburbs he received a great education but was often preoccupied with having fun instead of devoting himself totally to school. In high school he played football as first string defensive tackle on the varsity team. After high school he was accepted to Columbia College Chicago where he majored in screenwriting but fell in love with the fiction program. He had always been better at writing than anything else in school but Columbia totally immersed him in the culture of fiction writing. Sadly he had to go back to Cleveland after just two semesters in college. He worked for five years in Woodmere and Beachwood, Ohio and then returned to Chicago for college at Harold Washington College and then Roosevelt University where he is in his last semester majoring in Journalism and minoring in History. Throughout his return to Chicago, Victor has amassed several short stories, a novella and is working on a novel that will be published in the summer of 2011. He is sure his creative muscle is strong enough to establish a rapport with readers even though the upcoming novel is his first.

Inspiration

What inspires me is the possibility of someone reading one of my books and sparking change in their life. The change may only last a moment, but that's enough. I want the reader to feel my characters feelings and become a part of the conversations in my book. I don't want them to feel like they are just trudging through pages so they can feel pride about putting away another book. There has to be an experience in my work that educates.