While working at the Academy of Arts' chancellery, Grigorovich joined the close circle of actors, writers and scriptwriters. Soon he started writing himself, and made several translations of French vaudevilles ("The Inheritance", "Champaigne and Opium", both 1843) into Russian. Nekrasov noticed his first published original short stories, "Theatre Carriage" (1844) and "A Doggie" (1845), both bearing strong Gogol influence, and invited him to take part in the almanac "The Physiology of Saint Petersburg" he was working upon at the time. Grigorovich's contribution to it, a detailed study of the life of the travelling musicians of the city called "St. Petersburg Organ Grinders" (1845), was praised by the influential critic Vissarion Belinsky, to whom Nekrasov soon introduced him personally.