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Three Fun Facts About My First Name
Hi, I’m Gray — and what happens next tells something about you.
1. My name gave me interesting role models growing up.
The word “gray” is used extensively in the world of fiction, especially the speculative kind. My first stage role (age 3) was as “the little gray lamb” in a Christmas pageant. I grew up reading Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser adventures, and thought I’d grow up into a small, lithe, dexterous thief acrobat (spoiler: I didn’t).
I also loved Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat books, about the eponymous “Slippery Jim DiGriz”. He was a clever, wise-cracking con-man traveling the galaxy as a grifter with a heart of gold. As a teenager, I thought perhaps that was my destiny? (Spoiler: also nope).
It was nice of Dungeons & Dragons to name an entire campaign “Greyhawk” — it kind of cemented my identity as a nerd (which become the much cooler “geek” years later).
It was equally nice that Captain Picard liked a particular kind of tea, though that is the English spelling, not proper Irish like mine.
Even as an adult writer I found that a huge theme in all of my work — from the arts to consent practices to productivity — was embracing the idea of nuance, getting…
