About

Born in 1938, Tom grew up in South Philadelphia. He attended
St. Joseph’s Prep, Philadelphia’s Jesuit high school, and the
University of Notre Dame, both on academic scholarships. After
graduating magna cum laude from Notre Dame in 1960, Tom
joined the Jesuits, where he spent most of the next eighteen years.
Along the way he was ordained a priest in 1970; acquired graduate
degrees in philosophy, English, theology and law; taught in high
school, college, and law school; helped to edit the Jesuit magazine
America; clerked for a federal judge; and served as staff counsel for
a congressional committee investigating the assassination of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tom left the Jesuits and the priesthood on good terms in 1978.
Shortly thereafter he married Ann Dunleavy, having first met her
on a blind date when they were college freshmen in 1956. Tom
then worked as an attorney in private practice, served as general
counsel to a government relations firm, and eventually entered
upon a seventeen-year career as an appellate attorney in the Criminal
Division of the Department of Justice, during which time he
argued approximately sixty-five cases before federal circuit courts
of appeals.

Following his retirement from the Department of Justice in 2007,
he took a long-delayed plunge into the fine arts, which culminated
in a solo 2012 show of fifty-four paintings and drawings at the
Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery in Glen Echo, Maryland.

Finally, after writing millions of words of dubious aesthetic value as a
journalist and attorney, he began to write poetry seriously in 2013.
This volume is the result. Tom hopes there will be more to come.
Tom and Ann live in Bethesda, Maryland. Their two grown children,
Mark and Kate, live in Washington, D.C., where both are
attorneys.