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Gerri R. Gray

Born: 1959, in Berwyn, Illinois
Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: Gerri R. Gray was born and raised in the Chicago area. She began writing poetry while in grammar school, and by junior high was composing songs on her guitar and writing short stories and musical stage plays (one of which eventually became her first novel, The Amnesia Girl). Before becoming a professional writer, Gerri worked a number of odd jobs, including an answering service switchboard operator, an S&H Green Stamps redemption center clerk, a typist for a real estate office, and a professional astrologer. Her first notable publication (writing under the pen name, Gerry Nova) was an interview with Ides of March vocalist Jim Peterik, which appeared in the Berwyn Suburban Life in October of 1976.

Biography: In 1980 (still as Gerry Nova), she founded a small publishing company in California called Golden Isis Press, which published Circle of Shadows (a collection of poetry by Gerina Dunwich) in 1990. It also published the Golden Isis literary journal from 1980 until its discontinuation in 1996.

Gerri R. Gray contributed a chapter ('The House of Many Shadows') to the book, Ghost Hunting the Mohawk Valley by Lynda Lee Macken (Black Cat Press, 2012). It chronicled the hauntings and paranormal investigations that took place at the 19th century Italianate mansion in Upstate New York that Gerri and her husband currently live in, and out of which they operated a bed and breakfast themed after the 1960's television show, Dark Shadows.

Her debut novel, The Amnesia Girl, was published by HellBound Books in 2017. Set in the year 1974, The Amnesia Girl is an offbeat tale of two young women who escape from a New York psychiatric hospital and embark on a very bizarre cross-country journey to California. One Amazon reviewer described it as 'a wild romp through the insane.' Gerri's second book, Gray Skies of Dismal Dreams, was published in the spring of the following year, and is a collection of her dark poetry, short horror stories and cemetery photography. Her third book, an all-women horror anthology called The Graveyard Girls, was published in 2018.


Awards:

Primary Literary Genre(s): Fiction; Poetry

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

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