This is a real person, not the fictional character. His name
came across my dash last week as the editor of The Hipster Huckleberry Finn.
I did a bit of investigating and learned THHF is a real book and Richard
Grayson is a real writer.
The guy has a pretty epic autobiography on his website
(linked below), so you should totally read that. I’m just going to point out
some of the highlights because his piece is rather long.
Richard was actually born Richard Arnold Ginsberg in
Brooklyn, New York on June 4, 1951. His Jewish parents, both born in New York
City to parents who had emigrated from Eastern Europe, changed the family’s
surname when Richard was six months old. And so he became Richard Grayson.
Richard spent his childhood in Brooklyn. He was a smart kid
and good at school, but he began to suffer from daily panic attacks at age 15.
Although Richard sought psychiatric help, his conditioned worsened. After graduating
high school in 1968, his panic attacks increased. Although he had planned to
attend CUNY Brooklyn in the fall, he was unable to leave the house – sometimes his
agoraphobia was so severe he was unable to leave his bedroom. Reading was his
escape.
*Note: in his autobiography, Richard mentions that he liked
superhero comics, and that he would often pretend to be The Flash. Why did he
not pretend to be Robin – they have the same name?!
Eventually Richard’s psychiatrist prescribed Triavil, which
brought the panic attacks under control. Richard was able to attend college in
the fall of 1969, only a year later than originally planned. Really, his
recovery from anxiety is quite inspirational.
After undergrad, Richard pursued an MFA, which ultimately
led to a series of adjunct positions as a college writing instructor. In fits
and spurts, he has kept this up to this day. He also, of course, spent a lot of
his time writing fiction. I have appended a list of his selected works below.
Richard also engaged in what he calls “publicity art.” These
included facetious runs for political office and the establishment of
international fan clubs for his grandparents. (Man, why didn’t I think of that?”
He also ran for office in South Florida in the early 1980s.
In Richard’s own words:
“Campaigning for the Davie Town Council in 1982, I advocated
giving horses the right to vote. My platform consisted mainly of bad puns, like
pledging to vote “neigh” on everything till horse suffrage was passed, offering
the town a “more stable” form of government, and in the end forgoing campaign
speeches because I had “become a little hoarse myself.” I got 26% of the vote
as the media routinely covered my antics.”
Love it! I think I could be convinced to vote for a
candidate who made such epic puns.
He also ran for President in 1983. “On the Florida primary
ballot as a candidate for delegate to the Democratic convention (supporting
myself), I received over 2,000 votes – but Mom, whose name I had put on the
ballot as a candidate for alternate delegate, got twice as many votes as I did.”
Classic. You just don’t mess with old ladies in Florida; they have an iron grip
on power.
In 1994, Richard worked to defeat a ballot referendum that
would have rolled back the county’s gay-rights legislation. After the
referendum passed (!), Richard became a volunteer for the Human Rights Council
of North Central Florida. Now when he appeared on the news he had “Gay Activist”
under his name rather than “Political Candidate.” Luckily for GLBT residents of
Gainesville, the Human Rights Council was “ultimately successful in getting a
pro-gay rights majority elected to the Gainesville city commission.”
In the 1990s, Richard did some traveling and attended law
school “for fun.” He eventually ended up, along with his family, in Arizona,
but that was a short-lived move. His anxiety began to return, especially after
he was mugged outside his apartment.
He spent much of the 2000s in Florida, where he wrote
fiction and ran for various political offices. In 2010, though, he was back in
Arizona where he ran for the House of Representatives as a Green Party
candidate. Given that this was Arizona, he unsurprisingly did not win.
He seems to also spend a fair amount of his time in Brooklyn.
Richard is the main writer featured on the Dumbo Books blog (Dumbo Books
published The Hipster Huckleberry Finn).
*All quotes are from this two-part autobiography.
Books (more info at http://www.richardgrayson.com/works.htm):
With Hitler in New
York and Other Stories
Lincoln's Doctor's Dog
and Other Stories
I Brake for Delmore
Schwartz
I Survived Caracas
Traffic: Stories from the Me Decades
The Silicon Valley
Diet and Other Stories
Highly Irregular
Stories
Richard has also published many stories in various literary
magazines. Look him up – he seems like a pretty cool guy!
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