Editor’s note: Our “Monday Meeting” feature will allow readers to get to know a community member through a short Q&A conversation.

Name: Antonio Vallone. Also, Anthony, Tony, Professor V

Town of Residence: DuBois, Sandy(?) I’m honestly not sure where they begin and end.

Occupation: English Professor at Penn State DuBois

My favorite thing about where I live... Businesses like Jim’s Atlantic and Luigi’s, whose owners treat you like family

One thing I wish our area had... more restaurants from different cultures

I can’t live without... My wife, the great staff at the Fresenius dialysis clinic, and fountain pens

My favorite vacation spot is... visiting my daughter in Bellingham, Washington

In my free time I like to...spend time with my wife, write poems, talk to old friends on Zoom, watch movies, read, drink a good sugar-free vanilla latte, preferably from Aegis

I am up and at ‘em every day... Lol, like Dracula, I prefer the night. I only get up early for my dialysis sessions.

The worst job I ever had... Before I started teaching at Penn State DuBois, I taught six adjunct classes a semester at four universities in the state of Indiana. The classes themselves were great. The commuting around the state each week wasn’t. I called myself commas on wheels. We were so poor back then, at the end of the month I could only afford to buy gas and food from a Sunoco gas station I passed by, only because I had a Sunoco credit card, my only one.

A goal of mine in the next 12 months… to be alive, teaching my classes at Penn State, writing poems, working with my publishing company, MAMMOTH books and with Watershed Books