F. P. Lione

Frank and Pam grew up on Staten Island in New York City, their churches were across the street from each other, they went to the same high school that had over four thousand students in it at the time, and even played a fourth-grade baseball game together, but never actually met until years later. Frank was a boy scout, in his church’s bell choir and later a gymnast and New York City Champion pole vaulter. He attended Murry State University in Kentucky and worked as a carpenter in one of the local unions before joining the NYPD. Pam’s life was different, she attended catholic grammar school and grew up in a home dominated by addiction and dysfunction, which gives her wide range in her writing. As a child, her escape was reading everything she could get her hands on, and the summers she spent at her grandmother’s bungalow in Oakwood beach. Her father descended into homelessness and eventually, prison, but enjoyed sobriety the last five years of his life and died in faith. The Port Authority Homeless Series is directly inspired by Pam’s dad and their work with the poor and homeless with New York City Relief and West End Missions. Serving with the homeless is important to Frank and Pam, their friends at Port Authority and West End Mission are very dear to them. They know firsthand that people can make it back from the street, from drugs and alcohol and pain from their past. Pam and Frank Lione are the parents of two grown sons and a golden retriever named Buddy.