Dorien Grey started out as a pen-name, nothing more, for a lifelong book and magazine editor who wanted to write a mystery novel with a gay detective. However, because he was living in a remote and time-warped area of the upper mid-west where gays still feel it necessary to keep a very low profile, he did not feel comfortable using his own name--a sad commentary on our society, he admits.

But as the first book led to the second and then the third, he found Dorien slowly became much more than a pseudonym, evolving into an alter ego. "It's reached the point," he says, "where all I have to do is sit down at the computer and let Dorien tell the story."

As for the Dorien's "real person," he's had a not uninteresting life. Two years into college, he left to join the Naval Aviation Cadet program: he washed out and spent the rest of his brief military career on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. 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.

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.

He . . . and Dorien . . . of course, recently moved to Chicago, and now devote "their" energies 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--"they" are embarking on a new mystery series with a new protagonist: the Elliott Smith Mysteries, which will alternate with the Dick Hardesty Series. Dorien is awaiting the imminent, he hopes, release of the first book in the new 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.