LUELLEN SMILEY ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS

Where Gaps of Expression are Liberated

ABOUT

Luellen Smiley is a creative nonfiction writer, author, columnist, and historian whose writing is deeply rooted in a controversial personal history. She is the daughter of Allen Smiley, a close friend, associate, and business partner of notorious Las Vegas gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Her father was sitting only feet from Siegel when Siegel was murdered in Beverly Hills on June 20, 1947.

That extraordinary childhood history became the foundation for Smiley’s first book, Cradle of Crime: A Daughter’s Tribute, published in 2017. The memoir explores what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a man connected to organized crime while trying to reconcile her love for her father with the secrecy, fear, and criminal world surrounding him.

Smiley’s work has appeared in publications including the New York Post, MORE Magazine, Southern California newspapers, and Authorlink. She wrote the newspaper column Smiley’s Dice—Adventures in Livingness, which earned a Blue-Ribbon Award from the California Newspapers Association for her Growing Up With Gangsters columns.

Her interest in her father’s history also led her to become a researcher and commentator on organized crime history. She has participated in television, radio, and documentary interviews.

Smiley’s next book, Gaslighting Greta, will be published this year. A personal story that reads like fiction. Her own website describes the project as exploring a woman whose life is destabilized by gaslighting and psychological manipulation.

Her writing career reflects a recurring theme: using personal experience and research to uncover the truth behind complicated relationships and extraordinary lives. From the secretive world surrounding her father and Bugsy Siegel to the deeply personal territory of Gaslighting Greta, Smiley’s work transforms difficult experiences into stories of survival, discovery, and ultimately reclaiming one’s voice.

Luellen Smiley is an author whose life has given her an unusual perspective on secrecy, manipulation, family loyalty, betrayal, and survival—and she uses that perspective as the raw material for her nonfiction storytelling.

PART TWO OF ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS


 

On shore the land felt liquefied and unfamiliar without the sensual spark swimming along side me.  The leaves glistened above my head, like golden gems you’d wear on a necklace. The Santa Fe river sang its song over rocks, branches and brush, while white butterflies and birds fluttered an awakening.  I passed cafes, watched couples and families luxuriating in the sunlight, Canyon road art hawkers snapped photos, gallery owners chatted on the courtyards.

20141021_150953_resizedThe stage of comfort as picturesque as a postcard.  I was outside the activity.  I rushed home, passing people who walked as if lost, and shoes stuck in tar.  Thoughts trotted like ponies all going in different directions. No path had an answer, or a reason, or an understanding of our endearment. 

The Thinker swims close by. Sometimes I feel him soaring past me, glancing for a moment, then he’s gone. The house is quiet, doors and shades closed. My nakedness is wrapped in blankets and the aroma of pumpkin spice from a candle.  My stage is empty, no audience of  any sort. These are  the moments when examination of behavior, discipline, and self-honesty rise above  the solitude.  A woman of lovers rather than husbands, beckons my heart to open to the odyssey of  love.

I appreciate all the new followers from the THE THINKER story. Thank you for

your comments and hope you return for more. 

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Thank you for your response. ✨

 

 

 

LouLou

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5 responses to “PART TWO OF ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS”

  2. Loved, loved, loved the thinker post( my internet was down and couldn’t reply) – incredible prose, the best you’ve ever written. Out of your Heartbreak is coming phenomenal words – thank you so much for sharing this as well. WZ

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  3. ” a woman of lovers rather than husbands”…. I was that from the day I was born!!!..Now I am a woman of friends and ” loyalists” rather than lovers or husbands or even pets! Am leaving in 18 hurs….shipped more outfits than I know I will ever wear. Am trying out a new look. BLACK!!! I never wear it…SCAREY…but somehow sexier and more dangerous than Hermes burnt orange !!! Wonder how this will all shake down..It is my ” shakedown tour”. AM SO READY for this shift!!! Been too long at no fair!!!

    Sent from my iPad

    >

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    • No kidding? Me too. Learned from books and films that forbidden love is irresistible, pays well, and gives a woman independence.

      Good trip for you; just make the most of your boots and bag, then return them. Make it a great trip by just being out of medicare.

      In the future send your personal comments to be otherwise they pop up on my website.

      Baron took, your advise thru me, and Juliana is coming to nurse him when he returns. He leaves for Boston Saturday. Surprising adventures to you

      GALLERY LOULOU VACATION & EVENT & PERFORMANCE 343 E. Palace Avenue Santa Fe, NM 87501 http://www.vrbo.com/345671 Ph:518-859-7828

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