CASSEDY, Patrice (Rinaldo) 1953-

Personal

Born November 30, 1953, in New Haven, CT; daughter of Joseph Anthony, Jr. (a physician, hospital medical director, and medical researcher) and Rosemarie (a registered nurse, writer, and homemaker; maiden name, Mordelia) Rinaldo; married Steven Cassedy (a professor), June 29, 1975; children: Michael James, Eva Amelia. Education: University of Michigan, B.A., 1975; Rutgers School of Law, J.D., 1979. Hobbies and other interests: Interior design and decorating, jazz music.

Addresses

Agent— c/o Author Mail, Lucent Books, 10911 Technology Pl., San Diego, CA 92127. E-mail— Cassedyauthor@aol.com.

Career

Attorney, specializing in consumer credit law and real estate, 1980-2000; University of San Diego School of Law, San Diego, CA, adjunct professor of law, 1987-88. Admitted to the Bar of California.

Member

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Authors Guild.

Writings

Understanding Flowers for Algernon, Lucent Books (San Diego, CA), 2001.

Teen Pregnancy, Lucent Books (San Diego, CA), 2002.

Contributor of articles to periodicals, including San Diego Writer's Monthly, Uptown-Marquee, and Romance Writers' Report. Mademoiselle magazine, member of college board, c. 1971-75; San Diego Writer's Monthly, associate nonfiction editor, 1994.

"CAREERS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY" SERIES

Law Enforcement, Lucent Books (San Diego, CA), 2002.

Education, Lucent Books (San Diego, CA), 2003.

Biotechnology, Lucent Books (San Diego, CA), 2003.

Finance, Lucent Books (San Diego, CA), 2003.

Computer Technology, Lucent Books (San Diego, CA), 2004.

Work in Progress

Fiction projects for young adult and adult readers.

Sidelights

Patrice Cassedy told SATA: "By becoming a lawyer I took what seems like a long detour from grade school, high school, and college days, when I knew in my heart that I would be a writer. Like many authors, I have a little box of 'firsts' from my childhood: first picture book, first short story, first poem. They are very imaginative and hardly show that for many years I would use my writings skills to compose memos and contracts as a lawyer working in companies that lend money. When I did write outside my legal jobs, I tackled articles because they were easier for a working mom to get a handle on. I also enjoyed writing romance novels (unpublished), because they are the work of women mostly and my jobs as a lawyer were dominated by men. My books for Lucent Press represent the merger of fact-gathering skills learned as a lawyer and my personal enjoyment of young people. My aim as a young adult author is to encourage young people to question (and therefore better understand) themselves and the world around them."

About her future projects, Cassedy told SATA, "While I do not expect to write an autobiography, themes and characters in my fictional work arise from my background as an Italian-American in a large family, my experiences growing up in Detroit during a time of terrifying racial tensions and life-affirming Motown music, the loss of a very dear sister while I was a law student, and what I have learned about marriage and family after happily raising two remarkable children with the man who courted me as a teenager."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 1, 2001, Hazel Rochman, review of Understanding Flowers for Algernon, p. 1235; October 15, 2002, Roger Leslie, review of Law Enforcement, p. 416.

Rutgers Law, fall, 1994, "Spotlight: Lawyers and Love."

School Library Journal, July, 2003, Mary R. Hofmann, review of Education, p. 138.