Richard Grayson (born June 4, 1951, in Brooklyn, New York) is a writer, political activist and performance artist, most noted for his books of short stories and his satiric runs for public office.
Grayson's fiction is largely autobiographical, or pseudo-autobiographical.
Early career
Grayson was born in 1951 and attended New York public schools, graduating from Midwood High School in 1968. He attended Brooklyn College and received a B.A. in political science in 1973 and an M.F.A. in creative writing in 1976; Grayson also received an M.A. in English from Richmond College (now The College of Staten Island) in 1975. His stories began appearing in literary magazines in the mid-1970s, and in 1979, his first book-length collection of short stories, With Hitler in New York, was published. In the same year Grayson registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as a candidate for Vice President of the United States, receiving coverage for his humorous "campaign".
By 1979, Grayson had over 125 stories published in magazines and anthologies. He remained a prolific writer in the early 1980s, when several short story collections came out in quick succession: Lincoln's Doctor's Dog (1982), Eating at Arby's (1982), and I Brake for Delmore Schwartz (1983). Most of these stories originally appeared in journals such as Transatlantic Review, Texas Quarterly, California Quarterly, and Epoch.
In 1981, Grayson received a $3,000 grant from the Florida Fine Arts Council for his fiction. In 1988, Grayson received a writer-in-residence award for from the New York State Council on the Arts to be the writer-in-residence at the Rockland Arts Center in West Nyack, New York. Grayson also won a $5,000 fellowship in literature/fiction from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs in 1998.
Also in 1981, Grayson began a series of what he termed "publicity art," getting media attention for creating a fan club and fan magazine for his grandmother and starting a campaign to draft Burt Reynolds as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Florida. Grayson also filed a political action committee to draft Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran to run for the U.S. House of Representatives from Brooklyn in order to "neutralize" the Ayatollah during the Iran hostage crisis, saying that if elected, "Khomeini would be as ineffective as any other congressman."
Political activity
In 1982, Grayson ran for a seat on the Davie, Florida, town council on a platform advocating that the town's numerous horses be given the right to vote. He also suggested that Davie could gain more aid from the federal government by seceding from the U.S. and becoming a foreign country, "especially if we threaten to turn Communist." A Miami Herald editorial endorsed his opponent, calling Grayson's candidacy "some kind of wry joke." Upon learning that he had received only 25% of the vote, Grayson announced that he was moving to the neighboring city of Sunrise, saying Davie residents "won't have Dick Grayson to kick around anymore."
In 1983, Grayson filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to run for President of the United States in 1984 as a Democrat. Over the next year, the exploits in his humorous campaign to replace President Ronald Reagan were widely covered in the media. Perhaps his best-known remark, quoted in Time, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, was his explanation of why he asked the actress Jane Wyman, star of the then-current nighttime soap opera Falcon Crest and the former wife of the incumbent president, to be his vice presidential running mate: "She already has experience in dumping Ronald Reagan." As an alternative vice presidential candidate, Grayson favored Meryl Streep because he liked the sound of "Streep for Veep." Grayson said he would appoint Donna Summer as Secretary of Labor because "she works hard for the money." Other platform planks in the Grayson campaign included making El Salvador the 51st state and moving the U.S. capital to Davenport, Iowa.
In November 1983, Grayson took part in a series of debates with other minor presidential candidates at shopping malls in Florida.
A few months later, in January 1984, while an instructor of English at Broward Community College, Grayson sent a questionnaire to Florida state senators for a survey he was conducting called "Legislators in Love," implying that state funds were used in his academic research.