About Me

2024 FINALIST FOR THE RANDY SHILTS AWARD FOR GAY NONFICTION

My memoir, Leg, is out now! You can purchase it wherever books are sold. I’d recommend looking here to find an independent bookstore near you. Leg is also available on audiobook. I read it myself and manage not to burst into tears or guffaw inappropriately. I’d love you to give it a listen!

You may have heard that Leg made The Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2023 list. It also has the honor of being one of NPR’s Books We Love of 2023. Maybe you heard me on Weekend Edition with the wonderful Scott Simon. Or maybe you’d like to learn more about how Leg came to be from reading this funny conversation I had with my husband, Lucas, at our local swimming hole.

Whatever has brought you here, let me just say: thank you.

I’m eager to talk to book groups who might be interested in topics like disability, the LGBTQIA+ community, being a caregiver to ailing parents, and growing up in Utah. Drop me a line through the contacts page of this website or find me on Instagram at greg_from_a_leg. Yes, I am proud of that handle.

The Publisher’s Marketplace announcement for Leg says it beautifully: The book grapples with family, disability and coming of age in two closets—as a gay man and as a man living with cerebral palsy—while exploring with trenchant humor what it means to “transform” when there are parts of yourself you cannot change, pitched in the vein of Ryan O’Connell meets David Sedaris.

Kirkus calls Leg, “A sparkling portrait of personal discovery and a celebration of family, forgiveness, and thriving with a disability.”

In December 2023, I had the honor of being the Visiting Writer at the Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center at Texas State. I taught a class to graduate students on dark comedy in literature and read from Leg. It was a really good time.

A 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Prose, I graduated from the Michener Center for Writers in 2013 with an MFA in fiction and screenwriting and I have a Bachelor’s of Science from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. I've received fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo. In April of 2021, I won the McGinnis-Ritchie Award for nonfiction, presented by Southwest Review, for my essay “Corey.”

I’ve written about saying goodbye to a family member with ALS, losing a boyfriend to AIDS, and playing tennis with my dad. "(Also: inheriting his fancy Lexus and driving it into the ground.) I’ve also written about how getting hitched changed my life, oversexed pets, and growing up in Utah as a gay kid with cerebral palsy.

In addition to long-form reporting and essays, I’ve contributed humor pieces to McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Points in Case and Robot Butt. I’ve worked as a newspaper reporter and editor, a corporate copywriter, and a substitute teacher.

Before moving to Texas for graduate school, I was the arts and entertainment editor for the Park Record in Park City, Utah, where I covered the Sundance Film Festival. My work has appeared on KCPW, Salt Lake City’s NPR affiliate, and in numerous literary journals such as Joyland, Fourth Genre, Tahoma Review, Sonora Review and the popular websites Literary Hub and Electric Literature.

My essay “If I Only Had a Leg” is in Best American Essays 2017, edited by Leslie Jamison and Robert Atwan. Seven of my other essays have made the Notables list, in 2016 (“Suck Ray Blue”), 2018 (“Lies My Mother Told Me”), 2019 (“Secksi”), 2020 (“The John”), 2021 (“Corey”), 2022 (“Wedding Day, No Sun Required”) and 2023 “1:11 at Hippie Hollow.”)