Gray Area

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 are apes with tolerance

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 wa

In spite of my rather severe case of nerdiness, I have neither read nor watched Game of Thrones . Shocking, right? I refuse to do so because, before I could embark on the series, several friends told me beloved characters die in droves. Die. In. Droves.  Nope. Nopity nope nopers.  I refuse to consume media in which main characters die. I hate stories that don’t have some kind of happily-ever-after. I eschew media that allow any kind of harm to befall an animal. I also try to avoid any media, from movies to music to novels, that include any of my deal breakers: rape; harming an animal; rampant and unchallenged -isms; and really, really bad writing.  On the topics of books, you wouldn’t think it’d be difficult to find some that don’t kill main characters or end poorly, that don’t include graphic or gratuitous rape scenes and animal abuse, and that aren’t horribly racist or sexist. You’d think.  Let me give you a brief example. I just stopped reading book three of a long, enormous