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.

SATURDAY EPIFHANY


I had it today, unlike other days that the truth is mettled or opaque or I am distracted. It reminds me of one of the wisdoms my father passed on to me: ” You can fool the whole world little sweetheart, but you can’t fool yourself.” I was a teen, when he passed on this mantra of living, now, today on a sunny Solana Beach go to the beach or racetrack day, I sit here and contemplate who I was fooling and why.

At some point in my thirties, I decided to outperform convention: marriage, children, my career, and lead without warnings, without proven methods, I thought experimentation was my path. I changed careers, moved to multiple locations, and threw the dice on finances. I can’t truly say no regrets, adventures in livingness brings growth, but the bank account needs growth too! My gang, assures me I’ll get back on the track, thank God for friends that believe in us, right! I don’t need five million followers, just my five fly over me forever friends.

On the track, earlier this week I had a conversation about the Del Mar Horseraces. The race track at Del Mar is on and my friend goes several days a week,

” It‘s really a lot of fun. Why don’t you come sometime and get away from editing?”

” I’ve told you, haven’t I? My dad gambled on everything: horses, sports, the academy awards, and at lunch, if the fly would go out the open window. If I win, I know, I’ll get addicted.”

” Oh, yes, I forgot you mentioned that.”

So, the dice throwing is in remission, going forward: manage impulse, unconventional living, be sensible, pragmatic and use proven methods.

Solana Beach masses are at the beach or the track, and I’m editing. ( deleted 25 pages today because people don’t read 400 page books) You know why I can do it? Because I spent my glorified years going to the beach, the track, partying, parading, and popping.


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