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.
into the lane of a demon woman and full of hellish fire. It is the line that divides those that still care from those that just, whatever.
Never thought I’d be a don’t care, no dreamer, no hope woman but I am there. What is God telling me? What is the message?
Why am I meeting pitiful people? Do they reflect me?
Do they mimic me? Do breasts mean everything?
Was my youth my only charm?
Why are men blocking instead of buying me drinks?
Why do they prick, instead of prune?
Only when they are detonated with insults do they respond.
Is the strong female driven Hollywood character emblazoning every commercial, film, ad, and song
Stolen the testosterone?
I am going to look for the eighties woman I was. She was
full of laughter, confidence, romance and aspiration.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
I live in a temporary tide-pool, a lily floating against the current, weighted down by a suit of armor that shields me from the beauty, love and freedoms stirring in my bud.
The throw of the dice this week lands on a quote from the archives of my peculiarity-clipping folder. I don’t know if this is branded in a writer’s genes, or simply another trivial pursuit to aid us in remembering things, that at the time we feel we need to remember, but we are not sure why. Being a clipper means that nothing in print is safe in our presence. We cannot resist the impulse to possess particular images and words, and usually without any logical reason. Once we have retrieved the clipping, we file it in a folder or notebook. The clippings do not age well and after 10 years, they are yellowed with torn, frayed edges. They are rarely plucked from their binding burials and given present day meaning because they live in the bottom of trunks, or in storage units, and are difficult to get our hands on. Since I discovered a clipping several weeks ago I’ve been investigating the connection between clippings and destiny. I stopped being a savage clipper in 2002.
I opened up this one journal from 1988, and reading the pages, I came across the quote that propelled me into adventures in livingness. It came from Theater Critic, Kenneth Tynan, from a magazine article he wrote. It was a personal essay and the line that beamed through me like a telekinetic force was , “Adventure. Voyage, there is nothing else! ” When I ripped it out I did not live, or ever imagined I‘d live in Santa Fe. That was the first time I had come across that article. I remembered it, and swore an oath to adventure ever since. I memorialized the quote and have continued to look for new places to adventure and voyage. Since 1982, I have called home behind 31 different doors, in only six different cities.
I realize Kenneth’s voyage metaphor was not about relocating, though moving has a definite adventure inside it, but more of an internal adventure, opening your own doors to unconventional, unacceptable, and unrealistic measures in the hopes that you discover real newness of vision.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Once again after a lengthy and gushing nourishment of his body and mind, I return to this mask of myself. Sunken eyes and droopy cheeks; a hollowness that overwhelms the spirit.
The insomnia of separation from a man’s thunder. When his shoulder hooks my head, and tweaks my worries like soft bread. The mind that directs me when I am driving directionless, and maps my journey, and to walk beside me, a guardian of my fragility. The voice that encourages me, and applauds my success, rather than let it drip from jealously or preoccupation.
More to come.
How the laughter erupts in a moment of spontaneous passion.
My observation of his secret revealed, unknowingly.
The gestures of him shaving, and the modest vanity after I re-wardrobe him.
Feeling his eyes in a crowd, undressing or admiring me, for some folly or expression.
The humor he finds in my misguided attempts to open bottles, and packages with a dull spoon,
and figure out electronics.
How he will pardon and pamper my unwarranted fears of stalkers, misplacing my Progressive Prada glasses, and falling down the slippery wooden stairs.
The man whose balance evens my wrinkles.
Let’s the light into my eyes.
Opens my shell with wonder and tenderness.
WHY I write this is because the danger of reversing the purest form of love is tempting me. This dragon argues with me for dressing up, for believing in love, for wanting romance, for giving the guy next to me a chance, and for dating. She tries to stop me from waving at neighbors, for whistling winds of change, hope, and all those iridescent rainbows I lived with my man, and now are like submarine weights to lift each day.
It’s like taking down the Christmas Ornaments, and returning to the blemishes of winter.
Yes, the dragon sees me in the mirror, and maybe you, but we cannot allow her to trample over our feminine skin.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Paris beauty salon (Photo credit: adrian, acediscovery)
In the salon, Wendy, who sees me coming in and senses my mood, whipped out a particularly inviting greeting.
” What’s happening laaaaady?”
” Turning the page on another year. OMG- how did I get to be this age?” Screening my head for imperfections , she stroked my shoulder.
” You don’t need hi-lights, and you look terrific.
” That’s not enough, I haven’t planned well.
” You’re an artist, you create..
” You sure I don’t need hi-lights
” No, you look fab-u-lous.”
Two women in the salon, the conversation cuts through all of our individuality, and ends up in the center, of our tribal understanding, our sensitivities, and insecurities.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
