Ron Samul is a college educator and writer. He is the Director of Thames at Mitchell College, a pre-college learning experience, part of the college senior leadership team, and a board member for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. He was (2010-2021) a writing mentor in the Western Connecticut State University MFA in Creative and Professional Writing Program, mentoring thesis students in graduate level prose and nonfiction writing.
His work has appeared in Liturgical Credo, Outside In Magazine, SNReview, Inquiring News, Library Journal, DiveIN and other online media. His novel The Staff was shortlisted in 2017 Del Sol Press First Novel Press, and is now available in print and e-book format.
He resides in New London, Connecticut where he enjoys being at the beach with his family and reading on his front porch. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in educational leadership.
The Staff is available through Amazon.com and where books are sold on line. CLICK HERE to find the book.
This website is about the novel. If you are interested in other literary ideas, writing, creativity, and more, check out Suspension of Disbelief, filled with articles and content that will spark some ideas. It is free with a subscription.
Connect with Ron:
Book website: www.ronsamul.org
Bluesky: ronsamul-writer.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronsamul/
Email: ronsamulwriter@gmail.com
Reviews from The Staff
“An intriguing, skillfully constructed plot about the darker side of human nature. This novel features an intriguing and original main character.” — The Book Life Prize.
“In the tradition of Orwell and Huxley and Dostoevsky, Ron Samul has imagined a world in stunning detail where justice and human dignity are casualties of the fears that inhabit us and determine the contours of our lives. It is a terrifying world that exists beyond our reference points and yet it feels oddly familiar because the people we come to meet there, though strangers to us, give us an unexpected glimpse of ourselves.” — Don J. Snyder author of Of Time and Memory and Fallen Angel.
“A novel with the rarefied atmosphere of ancestral myth, The Staff unfolds in a time and place that feels ancient and simultaneously apart from history: a northern seaside village where the air holds the electric charge of prophetic meaning. Samul has written a dark, tension-filled allegory of crime, punishment, and transcendence that will appeal to fans of Hawthorne, Kafka, and Shirley Jackson.” — Tim Weed author of Will Poole’s Island and A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing.
Ann Michaud — I rarely rave about a book. This is an exception.
The premise seemed simple, the product went so much deeper than I could have imagined. Shades of Hawthorne, Kafka and Orwell…without feeling derivative. Kudos to the author for captivating my mind and imagination!
Barbie T — “Strangely mesmerizing view of good and evil in a bizarre society that could be past or future after a holocaust. It’s never specified why this small fishing community lives in such primitive circumstances with almost no contact with the rest of the world. Is there the rest of the world? The reader is left to wonder about a lot of things here. In view of recent political events it is even more frightening to think of what happens when society collapses and then sets new rules with arbitrary people in charge who assert themselves as a sort of ruler to pass judgments, collect taxes, set guidelines for behavior and punishments. As the story develops we see there are others that come to exert their power over these would be little tyrants and thieves too.
Was this a former penal colony? The reader will decide what is happening here and what will become of the strange cast of characters.
At any rate I’m glad I read “The Staff” and thank you Ron Samul for a book that makes us think about the good and evil in human nature and maybe how we can be better people too for reading this book.
Ron Samul 