Born in Lubbock, Texas in 1943 and raised in Minneapolis, Richard Grossman received a BA in English Literature from Stanford University in 1965. After working as a high-level executive for a multi-national financial services company, he left the corporate world in 1976 in order to devote his time to writing. His first book of poetry, Tycoon Boy, was published by kayak in 1977 and was followed by The Animals (Zygote Press, 1983; Graywolf, 1990; revised edition, American Letters Press, 2011).
Since 1990 Grossman has been concentrating on a trilogy of novels entitled, American Letters, a “divine comedy” of contemporary life, which forms the foundational basis of Breeze Avenue. Conceived by the author as a literary analog of heaven, this 3,000,000-page work will be launched online in its comprehensive digital form and numerous associated works from the project will be issued by alp. Among these are a series of 5,000 unique 5,000-page versions of Breeze Avenue, fourteen more conventionally published books ranging from novels and volumes of poetry to a glossary of every humorous word in the English language, and five art book projects. Titles from the project currently available include Boswell Speaks: Volumes 1-4, and a new, revised edition of Grossman’s 400 page-pastoral, The Animals. Works of art in a variety of media including sculptures, installations, videos, photographs, music, and theatrical performances are being produced by Grossman as part of the project.
Grossman’s poetry has appeared in over a hundred publications, including the Southern, Paris, North American, Chicago, and Hudson reviews. The Alphabet Man won the Illinois State University/Fiction Collective Two National Fiction Competition and was nominated for a PENWest Fiction Prize. Grossman and his wife currently live in Los Angeles, California and Makaweli, Hawaii.
For further information about Richard Grossman, and current and forthcoming titles, please visit www.richardgrossman.com
