Black Cats, Panties... and Hi!

Greetings, hordes of raving fans. Or sisters and bestie who plan to print out my blog posts and put them on the fridge. You know, whatever.

Let’s just get this out of the way right now. Admit it—you’re grateful I didn’t name this blog something like 300 Shades of Gray. Yeah, don’t think I didn’t consider it, but I still have a little bit of pride left.

Please let me introduce me. I’m Holly Gray, sociology professor by day, writer and volunteer by night, and current resident of the gorgeous Black Hills of South Dakota. My academic work focuses on social inequalities, which just happens to be the single most depressing thing ever. I mention this to explain: 1. My commitment to volunteering and social justice, 2. My obsession with animals as a psychic palate cleanser.

Plus, you know, I write lesbian paranormal romances. And lots of poetry.

One of my latest #SJW buttons

I wish I could dazzle you all with a list of my sparkling achievements. I mean, there was that one time I ran into Diedrich Bader in a bookstore in Santa Monica. Don’t worry—I totally played it cool. Plus, I wrote an entire Master’s thesis on Charlie’s Angels. I used to rescue animals, which is how I ended up with three black cats. Oh, and my current obsession is cranking out social justice buttons. Impressed yet?

My wife worries that when I become a world-famous writer of lesbian paranormal romances, I will have to fend off crowds of panty-waving fans. Somehow, I don’t think that’s an entirely legitimate concern.

I invite you to introduce yourselves to me in the comments section, friends. Welcome to the blog! And please keep your undergarments on.

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Poetry Slams, Not Body Slams

Sometimes, I style myself an intrepid explorer, an adventurer who boldly goes where no queer reader has gone before. Sometimes... I even download books from authors unknown to me. Case in point: I recently finished a straight paranormal romance and started another, both by authors unknown to me. Woot! I want to impress you with my bravery and perseverance, but, well, I’m not sure I’m going to move beyond 14% of the second novel. After abstaining from straight romances for a while, I found myself startled to remember some straight paranormal romance sheroes find it perfectly acceptable for their manly love interests to perpetrate against their womanly selves kidnapping, sneering, condescension, and, my personal favorite, body slams against otherwise-innocuous walls. The worst part? Despite being (taking a deep breath) kidnapped, sneered at, condescended to, and slammed against walls, these sheroes just can’t help but notice how tautly their kidnappers’ pants hug th...

Account of a 1920s "Spinster"

In my online Sociology of the Family course, I am mak-- er, encouraging my students to do a bit of research into the laws and social customs that would have defined their dating lives in one of the following years/eras: 1780, 1880, 1920, and 1970. As I wrote in our discussion prompt, "Just like real life, if you’re non-straight, trans, non-White, or so on, this will be especially challenging for you." I got so excited by my own assignment prompt, I did the assignment, too. (Yeah, I just admitted that.) Anyway, below is my queer, White exploration of dating in the 1920s. I was born around the turn of the 20th century. Exciting times! Tons of White folks are moving to the city to pursue careers in factories and in the service industries. My farming family is very poor, and my mother nudged me to move to the city and work in a department store in order to snag a rich husband. While working at the department store, I met another young woman, and we became fast frie...

The Terrible Titler: Birth of a Superhero

I recently discovered I possess a heretofore unacknowledged talent: devising truly awful book titles. I don’t want to brag or anything, but I came up two, maybe three dozen atrocious titles for the book I submitted to a publishing house. Naming novels is super hard. I haven’t had any children, but I’m pretty sure naming books is way harder than naming something as uncomplicated as a human. I mean, you already have their last name, parents. How challenging could the rest be?* But I digress. To name my novel, I first freewrote a brief description of its essence. Unfortunately, I waxed a bit too poetic and ended up with an unfortunate dearth of keywords. Behold: This story is about walls. It’s about how the walls in which we seek shelter can also become our prisons. It’s about choices. If someone offered you the chance to face your past traumas and finally heal, would you take it? It’s about animals and how we humans have forgotten that we...

Gray Area

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