I’m the author of the story collection How to Get Into Our House and Where We Keep the Money and the novella A Familiar Beast. My fiction and essays explore family, relationships, and the uneasy humor in everyday life, and have appeared in Tin House, McSweeney’s, Literary Hub, Salon, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as in the anthologies The Bastard on the Couch and Cooking and Stealing: The Tin House Non-Fiction Reader.
A longtime book editor, I’m now the co-founder and editorial director of The Next Big Idea Club and Author Insider, where I champion great nonfiction and the writers behind it.
To learn more, follow me on Substack, where I write about creativity, books, and the world of publishing, or on Instagram for all the other parts of my life.
(P.S. It’s pronounced PAWN-ee-oh — easier than it looks.)
You can read about my books below
How to Get Into Our House and Where We Keep the Money
Tales of love in its many forms—romantic, familial, and otherwise—and the ways it can both bind and undo us. Keenly observed and quietly funny, they capture the moments when ordinary life turns unexpectedly strange.
“A wonderful collection of nine stories combining wry humor, engaging characters, and shrewd psychological insight… Witty, discerning, and laugh-out-loud funny.” — Kirkus (Starred Review)
A Familiar Beast
A dark, haunting novella about guilt, friendship, and the uneasy path toward redemption. When a man reeling from loss visits an old friend in rural North Carolina, their shared loneliness leads to an encounter that forces him to confront who he’s become.
“Gianopoulos’ wisdom and humanity light up this darkly comic, bittersweet journey. Here is a gifted writer in full control of his craft—and impact. A Familiar Beast is a perfectly executed shot through the heart.” — Jean Nathan, author of The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright