William Considine was born in McKeesport. PA. His father was a fireman, with a sideline as a plumber. He first worked to assist his father in plumbing. He obtained higher education on scholarships and work-study. He graduated “With Great Distinction” from Stanford and cum laude from Harvard Law School. He was first encouraged to write poetry by Diane Middlebrook at Stanford and first formally studied writing poetry at Harvard with Elizabeth Bishop.
(Photo: Heath Antonio)
Bill was a member of the playwrights workshop of the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater, coordinated by Ed Bullins, with four staged readings there. He had play performances at Theater for the New City, La Mama, Brooklyn Army Terminal, Limbo Lounge, Ear Inn, ABC No Rio and Dixon Place.
He was active in the downtown NYC poetry world in the 1980’s and featured at numerous poetry venues. He also made poetry videos. His video of his long poem “Lincoln in Queens” won the Hometown USA Award from the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers in 1990, for excellence in video art produced on public access facilities.
He had a long hiatus from creative work, returning to it in 2011. His activities since that return are set forth in the Books, Poetry, Plays, and Multimedia sections of this website.
He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Polaris North theater artists cooperative, and Brevitas, a poets’ cooperative.
In his legal career, he served as a Lecturer in Law at Pace Law School, as an administrative law judge for the City of New York, and in three mayoral administrations as Special Counsel, General Counsel and Deputy Commissioner for a New York City agency. He subsequently served as an arbitrator and as Division Vice President for a public service corporation for dispute resolution.
As pro bono counsel for two community boards, he negotiated in 2000 the re-establishment of Canal Park, a two-thirds acre site in Manhattan that had been designed by Calvert Vaux and Samuel Parsons Jr. The park had been destroyed in construction of the Holland Tunnel and had remained a wide, paved roadway overlaying substantial utility conduits for almost 80 years. Re-designed and planted, Canal Park re-opened in 2005.
He retired as a lawyer in 2016 and lives with his wife in the New York city area and in Mexico. They have two grown daughters.