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.

Comments

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 their

Letting Characters Speak

Imagine a scene in a book in which an inspector asks three different characters the same question: “Were you there last night?” As authors, our job is to make each character’s voice distinctive enough that adding “Jose said” or “Jae Lin replied” becomes all but redundant. Not just with words that reflect our characters’ personalities, education levels, ages, and regions, but with, to name a very few, some of their preferred clichés, consistent emotional timbres, and verbal rhythms. I’m still, ahem, attempting to hone this authorial skill. I’m currently reading a book by an author who plumps out all his characters and manages, despite juggling a half-dozen protagonists, antagonists, and bit players, to give each one a rich enough personality to render them technicolor, relatable human beings. Damn him. Not for the first time, it occurs to me to create a kind of character bank in which I list not only the usual traits like appearance and background but also some verbal qui

Holly's Marriage Manifesta

I asked my online, Sociology of Family students to discuss divorce rates in personal terms. Below is my example, which also happens to serve as my Marriage Manifesta. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* In 2016, my wife and I got married in a small ceremony in a fancy-shmance hotel. My wife is Jewish, and I’m an Atheist, so we compromised and had a rabbi officiate in a secular setting. I’m well-educated. I’ve read the statistics that say Atheists, liberal folks, and some groups (including two-women couples) who have cohabitated before marriage have higher rates of divorce. Frankly, those stats kind of shock me, since I would think liberal Atheists would be less wedded (ha ha!) to traditional forms of marriage and emphasize egalitarian relationships, but what do I know? Just a newly married couple leading their best man, a dog, and their maid of honor, a cat, back down the aisle. Plus, there’s the queer factor. Minority stress , which is the strain of being members of a marginaliz

Gray Area

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