samgridley

[samgridley]

The Spirit of Barbie

Is that image kind of … creepy? Well, yes, in my story “Ghost on the Wall,” just published in The Summerset Review, a Malibu Barbie doll has a malignant influence. The overall story, though, isn’t creepy, I don’t think. There are hints of redemption, spiritualism, even romance. And a ghost named Jellin. It’s a longish tale, one of my nutty attempts to write a mini-novel in story form, but…

View On WordPress

#Barbie #Fiction #short story

[samgridley]

An Out-of-Season Thanksgiving

A new story of mine, “Immigrants,” has just appeared in The Del Sol Review. It’s about a family Thanksgiving dinner in which politics comes up. Much goes wrong, as you might expect, and the idea of being thankful is kind of lost. Just your typical American family, right? Many thanks to editor Kara De Folo and others at the magazine.

View On WordPress

#Fiction #literary #politics #short stories

[samgridley]

Civil Rights vs. Religion

Civil Rights vs. Religion

The controversy caused by Lorie Smith, an anti-gay Colorado website designer, has prompted me to think through my position on the issues she raises—issues that pit her religious beliefs against the rights of her (hypothetical) customers. Some of my liberal friends, predictably, have lined up against her. Though I’m way-left on the political spectrum, I don’t find the matter so simple. To review…

View On WordPress

#civil rights #gay rights #LGBTQ #politics #religion

[samgridley]

Too Distressing?

Photo by Umesh R. Desai on Unsplash A new story of mine, “A Topic Too Distressing to Mention,” is now posted on the Bangalore Review website. This marks my first attempt to deal with transgender issues, and it’s also an experiment in communal voice, the narrator being unidentified except as a member of a certain club of women. Anyone who has a chance to read the story is welcome to post a…

View On WordPress

#Fiction #politics #short stories #transgender

[samgridley]

Susie's e-book

Susie’s e-book

Susie Alioto, the namesake protagonist of The Bourgeois Anarchist, may be 66 years old and struggling a bit with her health, but she’s always been up-to-the-moment, so it’s no surprise that her story is now available in a Kindle-type ebook. The co-protagonist, her math-geek son Eric, ridicules her for surrendering to such a gross and uncool form of capitalism. But to understand the odd balance of…

View On WordPress

#anarchism #Fiction #literary #novels #politics

[samgridley]

If you liked DON'T LOOK UP...

If you liked DON’T LOOK UP…

View On WordPress

#anarchism #Fiction #literary #reviews

[samgridley]

Confession

It had to happen sometime. One of my most shameful adolescent acts has come to light, prompted by a seemingly innocent opportunity to share a “favorite library memory.” I don’t know why I suddenly spilled the beans. Perhaps I was confident that the librarian in the story must have since retired. But now I’m worried. Is it true that librarians, when they remove their glasses and let down their…

View On WordPress

#librarians #library

[samgridley]

Book Launch

We’ll be officially launching The Bourgeois Anarchist on November 30, 2021, via Zoom, at 7 p.m. Eastern. Being a taciturn curmudgeon, I’m extremely lucky to be joined by Elizabeth (Libby) Mosier, an extraordinary writer who’s a much better conversationalist than I am. Most likely, Libby will ask intelligent questions to which I will give confused, nonsensical answers. It should be fun! To…

View On WordPress

#anarchism #Fiction #literary #novella #politics

[samgridley]

Blurred Choices

Ellen Prentiss Campbell, an award-winning fiction writer and member of the National Book Critics Circle, has kindly reviewed The Bourgeois Anarchist in Tiferet Journal. Throughout the novella, she notes, “the lines between good and bad, right and wrong, blur”–proving she firmly grasped the book’s main theme. Though the magazine is available by subscription only, I can offer a quote from the end…

View On WordPress

#Fiction #literary #politics #reviews

[samgridley]

Out of My Shell

Out of My Shell

Over the past couple of months, in an attempt to promote my novella The Bourgeois Anarchist (Finishing Line Press), I’ve done three interviews with obliging bloggers. They were fun, especially when I could give a subversive answer to the questions. Here are the links, with a few selected quotes: Hasty Book List, by Ashley Hasty: Q: Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: A:…

View On WordPress

#Fiction #IndieAuthor #IndiePub #interview #literary #novella

[samgridley]

Susie Hits the Streets

Susie Hits the Streets

No, Susie Alioto, protagonist of The Bourgeois Anarchist, hasn’t taken to prostitution. As a lifelong, principled anarchist, she would support anyone’s freedom to choose that profession but, for herself, would eschew any hint of trading sex for capitalist compensation. In the novella, oddly, she may find herself in such a situation unwittingly. You’ll have to read the book to find out. What I…

View On WordPress

#Fiction #literary #novels

[samgridley]

Advance Praise for Susie's Story

Advance Praise for Susie’s Story

After some production struggles, my novella The Bourgeois Anarchist, featuring 66-year-old militant Susie Alioto, is on track to be released this fall by Finishing Line Press. You can order the book at the publisher’s site, and it will soon be available on Amazon, Bookshop.org, and elsewhere. Oddly, I haven’t yet boasted about what my distinguished writerly acquaintances have said about the…

View On WordPress

#anarchism #Fiction #literary #novels #politics

[samgridley]

Wonderland Stories

My pandemic productivity hasn’t been great, but by chance I have three works of fiction being published this spring. My short story “Crabs,” originally in Wilderness House Literary Review, has been selected for The Best Short Stories of Philadelphia 2020, edited by Matthew M. Perez. A new piece, “Wonderland Stories,” a four-part exploration of the way we’re always telling ourselves stories—and…

View On WordPress

#Fiction #IndieAuthor #IndiePub #literary

[samgridley]

FLP BOOK OF THE DAY: The Bourgeois Anarchist: A Novella by Sam Gridley

TO ORDER GO TO: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-bourgeois-anarchist-by-sam-gridley/

Please share/please repost. RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY

Sam Gridley is the author of the novels The Shame of What We Are and The Big Happiness, as well as stories and satire in more than sixty magazines and anthologies. He has received two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and neurotic dog and hangs out at the website Gridleyville.blog.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR The Bourgeois Anarchist by Sam Gridley

“It’s antifa vs artisanal coffee in this absorbing and timely Philadelphia story about the difficulties of living out one’s radical principles in the most orderly way possible.”

–Elisabeth Cohen, author of The Glitch

“When it comes to political convictions, our younger selves are bound to judge our older selves, and harshly. The charm of this novella is the way it presents this subject with such a light touch, such generosity, and such affection for its characters.”

–Simone Zelitch, author of Judenstaat, Waveland, and Louisa

“If you’ve ever wondered what you would do in a time of crisis … you’re doing it right now. Susie Alioto is doing her thing too… marching, banner-waving and trying to reconcile her anarchic principles with her non-violent beliefs, in an America where non-violence seems to be increasingly impossible. As tensions rise in her rapidly gentrifying district of Philadelphia, a motley crew of cops, mobsters, pacifists and pseudo-anarchists invade Susie’s quiet existence. No wonder she’s feeling dizzy. A thoroughly enjoyable, and surprisingly gentle, story of love, duty and politics.”

–Orla McAlinden, author of The Accidental Wife and The Flight of the Wren

#flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #novella

[samgridley]

Susie Finds a Home

Susie Finds a Home

Some years ago, I wrote a silly novel-length mystery spoof that, thanks to the wisdom of the publishing industry, has never seen the light of day. The characters, though, have begged to come back in a more serious effort, especially Susie Alioto, a 66-year-old anarchist and single mother. At last Susie is getting her due. Her new venue, a novella called The Bourgeois Anarchist, is coming out in…

View On WordPress

[samgridley]

What's Fair Is Fair. Except in Politics?

What’s Fair Is Fair. Except in Politics?

The original Gerry-mander: 1812 cartoon of a district in Massachusetts, a salamander-like shape that the artist named after Governor Elbridge Gerry Regular readers of this blog (both of you) may have noticed that it’s become increasingly political over the years. Like almost all sentient Americans, I’ve been sucked into the partisan fray. Even my recent fiction, such as The Bourgeois Anarchist…

View On WordPress

#Gerrymandering #politics

[samgridley]

The Morality of Ice Cream

The Morality of Ice Cream

John Stuart Mill

I was thinking today, in what context I don’t remember (maybe the context of a would-be dictator encouraging Americans to ignore a deadly virus he fostered?), about the most important subject for humanity. I decided it was moral philosophy. Because that’s, like, the guiding principle for everything we do, right? In the would-be dictator’s case, the philosophy is Me First, then…

View On WordPress