Dorien Grey

Author's website

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If it is possible to have a split personality without being schizophrenic, Dorien Grey qualifies. When long-time book and magazine editor Roger Margason chose the pseudonym "Dorien Grey" for his first book, it set off a chain of circumstances which has led to the comfortable division of labor and responsibility. Roger has charge of day-to-day existence, freeing Dorien—with the help of Roger’s fingers to write. It has reached the point where Roger merely sits back and reads the stories Dorien creates on the computer screen.

It’s not as though Roger has not had an uninteresting life of his own. Two years into college, he left to join the Naval Aviation Cadet program. Washing out after a year, he spent the rest of his brief military career on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean at the height of the cold war. The journal he kept of his time in the military, in the form of letters home, honed his writing skills and provided him with a wealth of experiences to draw from in his future writing. These letters can be seen as "A World Ago" at http://www.doriengrey.blogspot.com and will be appearing in book form in 2009.

Returning to college after service, he graduated with a B.A. in English, and embarked on a series of jobs which worked him into the editing field. While working for a Los Angeles publishing house, he was instrumental in establishing a division exclusively for the publication of gay paperbacks and magazines, of which he became editor. He moved on to edit a leading L.A. based international gay men's magazine.

Tiring of earthquakes, brush fires, mudslides, and riots, he returned to the midwest, where Dorien emerged, full-blown, like Venus from the sea. They’ve been inseparable (and interchangeable) ever since.

He . . . and Dorien . . . of course, recently moved to Chicago, and now devote full time to writing. After having completed twelve books in the popular Dick Hardesty Mystery series—eleven in release, the twelfth to come later this year, and a western/romance/adventure novel, Calico—Dorien is embarking on a new mystery series with a new protagonist, which will alternate with the Dick Hardesty Series, and is awaiting the hopefully imminent release of the first book in the new Elliott Smith mystery series, His Name is John.

But for a greater insight into the "real person" behind Dorien Grey, he invites the curious to read "The Poems of Dorien Grey," available as a download from GLB Publishers.

Let’s cut right to the chase: you’re a reader. I want more readers. Ergo, I want you. Now, the question is: what do I have to do to convince you to read one of my books? (I’m fairly convinced that once you do, the ‘potato chip principle’ will kick in, and having read one, you’ll want to read them all.)

To this end, I’ve put the first chapter of every book up on my website (http://www.doriengrey.net), and also have a running drawing for a free, autographed copy of any one of my books.

I also firmly believe that if a potential reader feels he/she knows the writer as a person, the more likely he/she is to seek out that writer’s books. And to that end, I have three major blogs running:

"A World Ago" (http://www.doriengrey.blogspot.net), "Dorien Grey and Me" (http://www.doriengreyandme.blogspot.com. and "A Life in Photos" (http://www.doriengreyphotolife.blogspot.com). I’d be pleased to have you drop by and take a look.

A writer without readers is nothing, and therefore readers are the most important thing in my life, and consider that with every word I write, I’m talking directly to the reader—which is, to say again, you. My drama coach in college used to say: "Remember, you are real people doing real things for the very first time." That is exactly how I think of my books. Each book is an adventure, and I’d love to have you come along on it.