The Author

Carl James Grindley, a native of Victoria, British Columbia, has lived all over the world and has the idiotic Generation X tattoos to show for it. Grindley has a B.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria in Canada, and, for a brief undistinguished time, studied for an M.F.A. under Albert Goldbarth in Kansas. Currently an associate professor at The City University of New York, Grindley has a Ph.D. from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Academically, Grindley’s claim to fame is that he taught Yale Divinity School’s first creative writing class in the school’s 300 year history.

Grindley is the winner of the 2012 Cathlamet Poetry Prize from Ravenna Press for his book Lora and The Dark Lady. His first three novels, Still Life, The Memoirs of a Supervillain, and The Fear of Contagion, were published by No Record Press in 2008. His first book of poetry GMbH was published by Spectacular Diseases Press in the UK in 1995. Grindley’s poetry has been published around the world in more than 50 journals and literary magazines.

Grindley’s literary heroes include Ballard, Burroughs, Borges, Calvino, Eco, Houellebecq, Murakami, Pavic, Vollmann and so on. If Grindley were a piece of machinery, he’d be a cog in a machine whose only function was to produce other cogs.

8 Responses to The Author

  1. Hey,

    How does one get this cool Commons site?

    Ernest

  2. Anyone can have one. It’s just a blog. Create one. Live the life.

  3. Rob Garfield says:

    Hey, I just stumbled across your page. Looks like I got here a little late. May I ask how you were using the site? I’ve been thinking about setting up a work in progress blog and am wondering what your insights are about “pre-publishing”/sharing work in progress.

  4. I think that sharing work in progress is fine, but that when you send stuff out in its final form, you’ve got to make sure to remove it from any and all social media sites. The more “in progress” it is, the better. Come spring, I might just start scanning the scraps of paper that I write my first drafts on.

  5. Fran says:

    Like you, I knew viola player Bill Kell for over 20 years. Would love to share some cathartic anecdotes.

  6. I miss Bill a great deal. I spent four years of my life hanging out with him. Feel free to email me. carl dot grindley at snet dot net

  7. Tonnie-Ann Nelson says:

    Proud to say that he is my professor.

  8. Jane Rogers says:

    I knew Bill in Youth Orchestra. He was hilarious! He once brought his viola to orchestra practice in a plastic bag! Brilliant guy sadly missed all too young.

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