Mystery Lovers Corner

Dorien Grey has morphed from a pseudonym to an alter ego. Though officially "born" in 2000, he had already had deep roots in the life and experiences of Roger Margason, a lifelong book and magazine editor who branched out from editing other people's books to writing his own.    

The relationship between the pseudonymous Dorien and the corporeal Roger can perhaps best be understood by thinking of Roger as the bulb, and Dorien as the flower.

In the course of his evolution, Dorien/Roger has had a not uninteresting life. Two years into college, he left to join the  Naval Aviation Cadet program. Washed out of the program after a year, he spent the remainder of his two year Navy career aboard an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The journal he kept of his time in the military is presented, in the form of letters home, which are currently chronicled in the currently-running blog: A World Ago (http://www.doriengrey.blogspot.com). These experiences honed his writing skills and provided him with a wealth of material for his future writings. 

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

Eventually tiring of earthquakes, brush fires, mud slides, and ruts, he returned to the midwest, where Dorien emerged as an almost separate entity.

Currently living in Chicago, Dorien has, in addition to the ten-book Dick Hardesty Mystery series (four of which were finalists for a Lambda Literary Award) and a western/romance/ adventure/mystery novel, Calico, two more completed manuscripts making the rounds of the publishers, and another one in the works.

Though all Dorien's books have gay characters and are set largely within the gay community, their themes, as are the characters themselves, are universal, and continue to attract a growing readership among mainstream mystery buffs. "We're all human beings first and foremost," Dorien says: "I just present the reader with a unique perspective he or she may not have considered previously.