Lennie Grimaldi is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in hundreds of newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, TV Guide, Yankee Magazine and Connecticut Magazine.
He is the author of Connecticut Characters: Personalities Spicing Up The Nutmeg State, Bow Tie Banker , a biography of David Carson, the retired CEO of People’s Bank, and Chased, the life of mob infiltrator Billy Chase. He is also the author of Connecticut Whistle Stops: Greenwich to New Haven and Only In Bridgeport, An Illustrated History of the Park City.

He has won awards for journalistic excellence from the Society of Professional Journalists, Connecticut Chapter and United Press International.

Grimaldi has also written dozens of radio campaigns and corporate-crafted history programs for companies such as Louis Rich, HBO, Tropicana, Excedrin, Nivea, SNET, Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Campbell Soup and Apple.

 

Grimaldi also brings a wide array of corporate communications and public relations experience. His clients have included Wal-Mart Stores and Donald Trump. For Wal-Mart Grimaldi directed a community and media relations campaign for the conversion of an EPA cleanup site in Stratford, CT into a new Wal-Mart retail outlet. For Trump, he handled communications during the hotly debated casino expansion issue before the Connecticut Legislature.

 

Keeping roots close to home he is the founder and host of the webzine Only In Bridgeport, devoted to government and politics in Connecticut’s largest city.

 

 

 

Contact Lennie Grimaldi, 203-913-2368

lenniegrimaldi@onlyinbridgeport.com

Connecticut Characters: Personalities Spicing Up The Nutmeg State

Lennie Grimaldi’s new book chronicles 40 years of spicy personalities from political chili peppers such as John Rowland and Joe Ganim, to pop culture cloves Linda Blair and Ed and Lorraine Warren to habanero Hells Angels and mobsters; a journey into the underbelly of cities to the wooded terrain of wilderness warriors. The FBI and Donald Trump too.

When 19-year-old Lennie Grimaldi tried to land an exclusive interview with 18-year-old actress Linda Blair following her arrest on drug charges he camped out near the women’s bathroom at a Westport bar. The Exorcist star gave him the interview. When Grimaldi needed color for a Connecticut Magazine profile of mobster Frank Piccolo, he crashed his wake. When Bridgeport’s sweet-and-sour Police Chief Joe Walsh refused an interview request, Grimaldi sent him a singing telegram. He got the interview.

These stories and more are chronicled in Grimaldi’s new book that captures a 40-year writing career covering some of Connecticut’s intriguing characters.

Grimaldi is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in hundreds of newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, TV Guide, Yankee Magazine and Connecticut Magazine. He also served as a media consultant to Donald Trump in the mid-/late 1990s. He is the founder and host of the webzine Only In Bridgeport, devoted to government and politics in Connecticut’s most populous city.

Link for consumers to order book http://www.lulu.com/shop/lennie-grimaldi/connecticut-characters/paperback/product-23109864.html