Descendant of Sicilian immigrants—high-rise beam‑walkers, barkeeps, radio-news anchors, fashion designers, herb-farmers, restaurateurs, and civil engineers--Vincent Joseph Noto was raised at the northern end of the San Joaquin Valley of California—near the part Joan Didion dubbed “somewhere else” and which George Lucas over‑romanticized in _American Graffiti_. Noto studied poetry with Pulitzer Prize winner and Poet Laureate of the United States, Philip Levine and with C. G. Hanslicek at CSU Fresno. While there he also studied film with Dr. Michael G. Tate. Noto has managed new and used bookstores, and taught in Central and Southern California public high schools. Noto has lived in Fresno, Anaheim, and  Long Beach, California; Portland and Beaverton, Oregon; and now lives in Omak, Washington with his ever-reading librarian fiancée, Melissa. He writes poetry, creative non-fiction, fiction, and film studies/criticism. Besides scribbling into a panoptic book about archetypes in literature and film, he enjoys walking in nature and engaging in autodidactic inquiries.