Reaching Beyond His Limits

Syracuse author publishes autobiography about growing up with a rare condition

By Mike Costanza

 

Francis DiClemente has learned from overcoming his disability.

“You might have some issues with things if you’re disabled, but…you can do a lot,” the 56-year-old Syracuse resident said.

Since his mid-teens DiClemente has had to deal with the effects of a recurring tumor that stunted his growth and forced him to take medications and undergo multiple operations.

Despite that, he has made New York Emmy Award-winning films, won a playwriting competition and written multiple books of poetry. His works have also appeared in magazines, anthologies and periodicals and his book “Stunted: A Memoir of Delayed Manhood” was just released in May.”

DiClemente was just 15 years old and living with his family in the city of Rome in Mohawk Valley when he noticed that he wasn’t experiencing the growth spurts that his peers were going through. At first, he thought it might be normal—both his parents were short.

“While I understood that, it was like I was seeing no progression at all,” he said. “I just kind of had a feeling that something was wrong.”

X-rays and tests revealed that a tumor had grown upon DiClemente’s pituitary gland. Though the craniopharyngioma was benign, it caused panhypopituitarism, a rare condition in which the pituitary gland does not produce the hormones it normally makes, including those that spur physical growth and the onset of puberty.

DiClemente underwent surgery to remove the tumor and was given an experimental synthetic growth hormone and synthetic testosterone to stimulate puberty. The medications worked—he went from 4 feet, 8 inches to 5 feet, 3 inches tall in a few years—but the experience profoundly affected him.

“I looked really young for my age, so that kind of affected my identity,” he said.

As he navigated young adulthood, acquired undergraduate and graduate degrees and explored relationships and his own sexuality, he realized that the experience had left him obsessed with his physical appearance and feeling isolated, ashamed and full of self-doubt.

That began to change after he became a reporter for a small Florida newspaper.

“There was a really great managing editor who kind of demonstrated, like, masculinity in action kind of by his behavior, by the way he worked with his colleagues and the people he supervised,” DiClemente said.

The editor, whom DiClemente refers to as “John” in his book (not his real name), set a professional tone in the office, spent long hours at his desk, always maintained his composure and compassionately mentored and managed his subordinates. The budding journalist learned a great deal from working with him.

“I just tried to emulate that wherever I went, you know, having empathy for other people, trying to listen to other people…demonstrating work ethic and taking responsibility for yourself,” DiClemente said.

He put those lessons to use as he worked in increasingly responsible positions first in broadcast news, and then for Syracuse University’s division of marketing as a video producer. He’s now a senior producer for the division and a married father. “Stunted” captures some of the personal changes he’s undergone over the years.

“It’s kind of an understanding of masculinity, manhood, but also adulthood as more of a sense of outward expression of character, responsibility, work ethic as opposed to physical appearance,” DiClemente said. “It took me a while to kind of learn that through the course of living, but I think that’s what I learned along the way.”

In addition to writing “Stunted,” DiClemente is the author of multiple poetry collections, other works that have appeared in books, magazines and periodicals and a full-length play. “Beyond the Glass” was inspired by the iconic Edward Hopper painting “Nighthawks,” which depicts four people sitting in a diner on a dark city street.

“My idea was that one of the characters was Edward Hopper, the character with his back to the glass,” DiClemente said. “During the course of the play he revealed that they’re all trapped inside a painting because there’s no door and none of them can get out.”

“Beyond the Glass” won the 2017 Las Vegas Little Theater New Works Competition and was subsequently performed at the Nevada theater.

Film lovers might be more familiar with DiClemente’s three short documentaries, all of which focused on some aspect of a community. For “The Real Bedford Falls: It’s a Wonderful Life” he turned his attention to Seneca Falls. The Seneca County town is reputed in some quarters to be the model for Bedford Falls, the setting of Frank Capra’s classic 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“It’s just one of my favorite movies and there’s all these, like, different stories about, well, Seneca Falls is really the inspiration for Bedford Falls,” DiClemente said.

“The Real Bedford Falls” portrays life in Seneca Falls and the excitement of its annual It’s a Wonderful Life Festival while celebrating the movie’s important themes. DiClemente received a New York Emmy Award in 2021 for co-writing, co-producing and co-directing the film. Honest Engine Films, an independent film development and production company in Monterey, California, financed the project. The movie is available on Amazon Prime.

DiClemente’s next two short documentaries focused upon subjects that were closer to home. “Ralph Rotella: The Sole of Syracuse” presented the story of Rotella, the longtime owner of the downtown shop Discount Shoe Repair.

“He really fosters the community just because he’s such a nice guy and people come in there to talk to him and bring their shoes,” DiClemente said. “It was really interesting just to explore that.”

Rotella is also known for his generosity to the less fortunate. Starting in 2011, he began holding annual shoe drives to collect shoes for the needy. By 2025, he’d collected and repaired 250,000 pairs of shoes and given them to the local Rescue Mission.

“Ralph Rotella,” which DiClemente produced and co-directed, premiered at the Syracuse International Film Festival in 2023. The film earned a Golden Remi Award at the 2024 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, in addition to other accolades.

For his third documentary, DiClemente turned his eyes on a subject that took him back to his hometown. “The World Series of Bocce: A Celebration of Sport, Family and Community” portrayed the sports event that annually draws bocce teams from all over the world to Rome. The 2023 film goes beyond the teams’ intense competition to depict its economic and social impact on the community.

Many of DiClemente’s productions for Syracuse University’s marketing department have also earned praise. He was part of the team that created the 2022 film “Rise Beyond: Syracuse University,” which received a New York Emmy Award.

Craniopharyngiomas are notorious for reappearing. DiClemente has had to undergo a total of six surgeries to remove or shrink the tumors and continues to take synthetic hormones to replace the ones his body can’t produce. He sometimes gets double vision when working at his computer without his glasses, and suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, which is unrelated to the tumors. Despite all that, he’s working on another poetry collection, some stage plays and what he hopes will be his next memoir. The book would take up his story starting in 1995.

 

Praise From Friends

He Did it With Dignity

Kathleen Kramer and Francis DiClemente met in 2012 through Armory Square Playwrights, a group that brings new works to audiences and gives up-and-coming Central New York writers opportunities to develop.

“We were both playwrights at the time…and were able to hear each other’s work read in the sessions when the group met, you know, to critique each other’s work,” she said.

DiClemente was working on his play “Beyond the Glass” at the time. Kramer was impressed with his work as a playwright, and with him as a person.

“He is very intelligent, very open, compassionate, kind, funny, brave, brave to face all of the surgeries and also the results of the tumor that kept him from being able to reach full maturity physically as a young man,” she said. “It was probably a very rare struggle that he had, but he did it with dignity and openness.”

Kramer grew to consider DiClemente a good friend and wrote a blurb for his book of poetry “Dreaming of Lemon Trees: Selected Poems by Francis DiClemente.”

Open About His Disability

Joanne Storkan first encountered DiClemente back in about 2012, when she came to Syracuse University to work on an independent film about lacrosse. She was surprised by both his youthful appearance and his openness about his disability.

“He was very forthright, just telling me about what happened to him,” said Storkan, who is executive producer of the Monterey, California-based, independent film company Honest Engine Films.

The two hit it off, and Storkan agreed to finance and become the executive producer of DiClemente’s documentary short “The Real Bedford Falls: It’s a Wonderful Life.” As she watched him work on the film, she came to admire his attention to detail and work ethic.

“He worked so hard, he never complained,” she said. “I was just so impressed with him.”

She has long been glad to count DiClemente as a good friend.

“He’s an outstanding man,” Storkan said. “When you asked if I’d make some comments about him, I just felt honored to do it.”

“The Real Bedford Falls” received a New York State Emmy Award in 2021, giving Storkan her third.