As far as his students and fans of his fiction are concerned, Flourtown resident Nick Gregorio is Superman (at least on Halloween).

by Len Lear

Did you ever read a rave book review that really interested you, after which you said to yourself, “I have to read this book?” Be honest – how many times did you actually get the book and read it? Me too.

Let's face it. Maybe you have a full-time job, a family, hobbies, TV shows and movies you have to watch, restaurants you have to go to, chores around the house, walking the dog, etc. So who has time to read all those books you would love to read? And who has the time to write them?

The answer to both questions: Nick Gregorio. The 34-year-old Flourtown resident apparently has twice as many hours in the day as the rest of us do. Gregorio, a Chestnut Hill College alumnus with master's degrees from both CHC and Arcadia University, is a full-time English teacher at Ligouri Academy, a private school in Kensington founded by a former priest, as well as an adjunct professor at CHC who also co-hosts a podcast called “book.record.beer.”

But that is only the beginning. Gregorio's fiction has appeared in Crack the Spine, Hypertrophic Literary, 805 Literary and Arts Journal, and many more. His debut novel, “Good Grief,” was released in 2017, followed by a book of short stories, “This Distance,” in 2018 (both published by Maudlin House in Chicago), and two more novels that will likely be published in the near future.

And talk about rave reviews! On Goodreads, a prominent book review website, “Good Grief” has 66 reviews with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5.0.

A typical five-star review, by a Justin Hunter, states: “Gregorio captures the nostalgia of a generation that borders Gen X and Millennial in this wonderfully written novel. His characters ooze pain and joy and anger in unrelenting bursts. Gregorio masterfully destroys his characters – takes them further down paths than the reader might expect – before offering the opportunity for redemption. And that is what makes the novel feel. It reads true. Well done.”

Gregorio, who is also a huge comic book fan, says his writing is 100% fiction, based completely on his own imagination, not on his own life or the lives of friends and family. His most frequent subjects are “loneliness mostly, failing to connect, not wanting to connect, quiet domestic stuff, light science fiction.

“Writing is a compulsion I have had since I was a kid. I just love to tell stories. I have so many stories in my mind. I tell my students that what makes us human is the ability to tell stories to one another.”

Gregorio is also working on a fascinating, possibly unique concept with a local poet, Francis Daulerio, turning Daulerio’s work into prose stories while the poet turns his prose into poetry. He said his two favorite contemporary books of poetry are by two local residents, “Seasonal Affected,” by Rebecca Kokitus, and “Deep Camouflage,” by Amy Saul-Zerby, which are both “masterful!”

It has been said that good writers are also voracious readers, to which Gregorio is Exhibit A. Again, I have no idea where he finds the time, but he estimates that he has read about 400 books in the past 12 years. At one time he was reading 52 books a year all while holding a full-time job at an Office Depot store in North Wales.

“There were so few customers that I got a lot of reading done every day,” he said, “and one day the boss took me aside after firing five other people and told me he appreciated what a loyal employee I was!

“Then I got my first full-time teaching job, so I had to cut back. Now I'm down to reading about 40 books a year. When I was young, I read all of Michael Crichton's books, for example, and loved them for their great plots, but I forgot about them over the years, so I read all of them again!”

According to Gregorio, “Good Grief” began as a graphic novel script in 2011, but after quite a while, he had “nothing to show for it aside from a flash drive full of vulgar, ridiculous short stories and half-finished novels. After receiving one rejection letter too many, I figured it was the publishers who had the problem. It couldn’t be my writing; it just couldn’t.

“So I figured I’d try my hand at writing comics, because, you know, breaking into comics is so much easier than traditional publishing … Obviously, I was a fool. Several gut-checks and hard lessons later, I was lucky enough to be able to go back to school to hone a set of super rough skills. But overall, the novel as it is today didn’t start to take shape until I began my coursework at Arcadia.”

Gregorio, who was also a football player and rode crew at La Salle College High School and was a musician in punk rock bands, lives in Flourtown with his wife, Liz who works in public relations, and a golden retriever, Willow, 4.

“My ultimate goal,” he said, “is to write full-time. I would just like to churn out the stories.”

For more information about Gregorio’s books, visit NickGregorio.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@cheastnuthilllocal.com