Jonathan LaPoma

Jonathan LaPoma is a novelist, screenwriter, songwriter, and poet from Buffalo, NY. In the past ten years, he?s worked in over fifteen American public schools as either a substitute or full-time teacher. In 2005, he received a BA in history and a secondary education credential from the State University of New York at Geneseo. A few months after graduating, he and a friend took a seven-week cross-country road trip from Buffalo to the Pacific. Within a year of his return, he bought a one-way ticket to Mexico, where he lived in a small Pacific coast town for five months and traveled throughout the country in an attempt to find answers to questions that haunt many young adults trying to find their place in the world. These experiences have become the inspiration for much of his writing, which often explores themes of alienation and misery as human constructions that can be overcome through self-understanding and the acceptance of suffering. Jonathan has written two novels, five feature-length screenplays, and hundreds of songs and poems. His screenplays have won over thirty awards/honors at various international screenwriting competitions, including first-place victories in the 2014 Hollywood Screenplay Contest (Grand Jury Prize), the 2015 Las Vegas Screenplay Contest (two wins: Grand Jury Prize and First in the Drama category), the 2014 London Film Awards (Grand Prize: Feature Screenplay category), the 2014 Awareness Film Festival, and the 2014 West Field Screenwriting Awards (The New York Award). He lives in San Diego, CA, and teaches at a public secondary school.