Parodies of the Fall

Thomas Grissom was Emeritus Member of the Faculty at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where for twenty-two years he taught across a broad range of curricula including Great Books, literature, philosophy, physics and mathematics. Prior to that he was a research physicist and Department Manager at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he had responsibility for the design and development of nuclear weapon components. He resigned his post in 1985 as a matter of conscience, a decision chronicled in three separate accounts: Studs Terkel, The Great Divide; Debra Rosenthal, At the Heart of the Bomb; and Melissa Everett, Breaking Ranks. He is the author of The Physicist's World, Johns Hopkins University Press; five collections of poems, Other Truths, One Spring More, Journal Entries, Neither Here Nor There and Selected Poems; a treatise on archery, Principles of Traditional Archery; two collections of short stories, The Fawn and Other Stories and At the Top of the World and Other Stories; and a novel, Parodies of the Fall, all published by Sunstone Press.

Thomas Grissom is a former research physicist and Department Manager at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM, where he oversaw the design and development of major nuclear weapons components. Grissom resigned his post in 1985 after fifteen years of service as a matter of conscience, a decision and a career later chronicled in three separate accounts: Studs Terkel, The Great Divide, Pantheon Books, 1988; Debra Rosenthal, At the Heart of the Bomb, Addison Wesley, 1990; Melissa Everett, Breaking Ranks, New Society Publishers, 1989. His upcoming novel, Parodies of the Fall (Charles River Press, summer 2012) incorporates his experiences, moral questions and dilemmas into a compelling narrative.
Grissom spent the next twenty-two years as a Member of the Faculty at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, where he taught across a broad spectrum of curricula including Great Books, literature and philosophy, as well as physics and mathematics.

Mr. Grissom has published two volumes of poetry and has completed manuscripts on archery, two short-story collections, and a scientific text published by John Hopkins University Press, summer 2011. He lives with his wife in the American Southwest where he is working on a sequel to Parodies of the Fall.