In today’s episode, we talk with Gale Massey about her novel The Girl From Bling River, playing poker, and Florida life.

Full Transcript

More from Gale!

“The Namesake” (CutBank)

Buy: The Girl from Blind River

Notable Quotable

The Girl from Blind River chat

“They weren’t really loyal to their friends. They weren’t really loyal to their mate, to a certain extent. I’m just gonna say the book was kind of showing you the underbelly of people.” — Gramel

“I’m also wondering if it’s saying, because he was closeted in a small town. That was one of the reasons why he drank so much, and why it’s such an awful person, because he didn’t get to live his out life.” — Tyler

from the convo with Gale

“I spent 10 years in Pinellas Park. And then I spent eight years in St. Petersburg. And then I fled for the big city when I came out and turned the page and went to Atlanta, and spent 30 years in Atlanta, and I recently moved back here. I met my wife at a birthday party in Mexico. And she happened to live in St. Petersburg. So it was sort of like a full circle.” — Gale

“You know, how you, you put a character in the worst possible scenario and watch them try and get out. That’s sort of what I had in mind with taking away all of Jamie’s options, and leaving poker as her only viable way to see the future for herself and to pursue a future for herself.” — Gale

“I’m very interested, perhaps even obsessed with family dynamics, and family loyalty and what you’re taught what love is, is love really loyalty or are those different things?” — Gale