Gray.
Me, the writer, not the character
My stories are sometimes fiction, always true.
I’m not the Gray or Grace in these stories.
But we’ve walked a lot of the same roads.
Heard a lot of the same songs.
Cried over a lot of the same things.
For a long time, I lived mostly in my head.
These days, I write it out.
When I started writing, I chose the name Gray because that’s how I felt. Much later, I learned my father had used the same name whenever he wanted to disappear into the background. I didn’t know that when I chose it, which somehow makes it feel even more significant.
Funny how a name you choose while you’re trying to disappear can eventually lead you somewhere you’re finally willing to be seen.
Somewhere along the way, this stopped feeling like a place I found and started feeling like a place I belonged.
These days it’s Hank, Beau, and me, trading stories across the porch rail and seeing where they land. They don’t ask me to sand off the rough edges or quiet the loud ones. Like I said, they just let me be the real me. The real real me. Plus, they let me drive... sometimes.
So I’m not going anywhere.
💖🎀🐢~Gray
Start Here.
From Gray’s Roots and Revelry Series:
More from Gray:
See Gray’s full SWG Catalog here:
Free to read for a few more weeks:
Turtle Meat Mixtapes.
Before there were stories, there were mixtapes.
Every road trip, every recipe, every bad day laid out on cold tile deserved a soundtrack.
If you’d like to see where all this started... click here.
Or go straight to this fan favorite:
Books.
Here are the Southern Writers Guild’s first three books. Click the button below—there are more… and more to come!
Meet the Guild.
You can always find me on The Porch or at The Kitchen Table, where I spin tales with my cohorts and co-founders, MJ Polk and primalbeet:
Around Here.
Around here you’ll find:
• run-on sentences
• Oxford commas used with reckless abandon
• Southern colloquialisms (a few I made up)
• stories that blur the line between memory and fiction
• music humming somewhere in the background
• hope and Grace
Pull up a chair.
I’ve always known the phrase you can’t go home again is true, because I never really had one. But I know you can set up house just about anywhere.
I like it here on The Porch. It’s cozy and warm and maybe feels like it maybe could be home. No performances. Just something true.
Maybe you will like it too.
And.
…you do not want to miss how it all began.
ABOUT THE SOUTHERN WRITERS GUILD