Gray, Dianne E.

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Gray, Dianne E.

PERSONAL:

Born in York, NE; married; husband's name Lee (a professor); children: two daughters. Education: Earned two bachelor's degrees (computer science and psychology); Hamline University, M.A. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, playing tennis.

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—Winona, MN. E-mail—dgray@prairievoices.com.

CAREER:

Writer. Worked as a computer programmer, systems analyst, and information system manager for twenty years; GrayGoose Software, Winona, MN, cofounder and software developer. Has also taught at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Willa Literary Award, Women Writing the West, and Best Books for Young Adults selection, American Library Association (ALA), both 2001, both for Holding Up the Earth; Pen USA Award finalist, Willa Literary Award finalist, ALA Best Books for Young Adults nomination, and Nebraska Book Award, Nebraska Center for the Book, 2003, all for Together Apart; Minnesota Book Award, Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library, and Nebraska Book Award, both 2007, both for Tomorrow, the River.

WRITINGS:

HISTORICAL FICTION

Holding Up the Earth, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

Together Apart, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2002.

Tomorrow, the River, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Nebraska native Dianne E. Gray is the author of a number of critically acclaimed young-adult novels, including Holding Up the Earth, the recipient of a Willa Literary Award from Women Writing the West. Gray, who enjoyed a long career in computer information systems before trying her hand at creative writing, is also the developer of the interactive story-writing software Hodgepodge, which is marketed through GrayGoose Software, a company she founded with her husband.

Gray's debut novel, Holding Up the Earth, concerns five generations of young women and their relationship to a small Nebraska farm. The tale centers on fourteen-year-old Hope, an orphan who has been shuttled from one foster home to another since her mother died in an automobile accident eight years earlier. Sarah, a college professor and Hope's newest foster mother, invites the teen to spend the summer on the farm where she grew up and where Sarah's mother, Anna, still resides. There Hope is introduced to the letters of Abigail Chapman, a girl whose father established the homestead and whose letters describe the hardships of pioneer life in 1869. Hope also reads from a diary belonging to Rebecca, a servant girl who lived on the farm at the turn of the twentieth century. She also learns that Anna saved the farm during the Great Depression, and discovers that Sarah fought against government intrusion on the nearby prairie. "What Hope understands is that many young women before her suffered great hardship and survived, in some ways healed by the land, working on the farm," observed Kliatt reviewer Claire Rosser. "While all the narratives are not equally compelling, many themes and symbols create a rich quilt of memories," noted School Library Journal critic Elizabeth A. Kaminetz, and a Horn Book contributor called Holding Up the Earth "a carefully structured work full of recurring connections and patterns, peopled with strong female characters."

Set in Nebraska in 1888, Together Apart focuses on teenagers Hannah and Isaac, friends who survived a deadly storm known as the "School Children's Blizzard" by huddling beneath a haystack. Months later, Isaac flees his abusive stepfather. When a grief-stricken Hannah, who lost her two brothers in the storm, also leaves her family farm, both teens ultimately find themselves at the home of Eliza Moore. A widowed suffragist, Moore puts the pair to work on the Women's Gazette, a feminist newsletter that she publishes. Hannah and Isaac also help Eliza open a "resting room" for visiting farm women and their children, and through their efforts the teens begin to overcome their painful histories. Writing in Horn Book, Christine M. Heppermann stated that the author's "measured prose gracefully brings Hannah and Isaac to the conclusion that, if they could sustain each other through one storm, they would do well to face the future together." According to a reviewer in Publishers Weekly, "the blossoming love story will keep readers involved, and Gray's memorable characters reveal the late 19th-century society's attitudes toward women's rights and class consciousness."

Hannah and Isaac return in Tomorrow, the River, Gray's third work of historical fiction. Now married and the owners of a Mississippi riverboat, the duo is joined one summer by Hannah's fourteen-year-old sister, Megan. After a brief but exciting train trip during which she encounters a host of colorful characters, Megan boards the Oh My at Burlington, Iowa. When Isaac suffers a horrible injury, Megan must take on a greater share of the responsibilities, and she learns to fish, swim, and pilot the boat. "History and river life are skillfully woven into the fast-moving plot," noted Kathryn Kosiorek in School Library Journal. Heppermann commented that "it's rewarding to follow Megan's transformation from a girl unsure of her strengths and future to a confident young woman," and Booklist contributor Hazel Rochman described Tomorrow, the River as "a survival adventure and a realistic coming-of-age story."

On her home page, Gray remarked: "My advice to anyone who ever thought they might like to write—go for it, no matter if you are ten or ten times ten. You're never too young or too old to begin." She added that aspiring authors should "tune in to the world around you. There's magic there, in the simplest, everyday things, if only you open your eyes and ears and heart."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2001, Gillian Engberg, review of Holding Up the Earth, p. 959; September 15, 2002, Hazel Rochman, review of Together Apart, p. 226; December 1, 2006, Hazel Rochman, review of Tomorrow, the River, p. 38.

Book Report, May, 2001, Linden Dennis, review of Holding Up the Earth, p. 58.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November, 2000, review of Holding Up the Earth, p. 105; November, 2002, review of Together Apart, p. 108.

Horn Book, September, 2000, review of Holding Up the Earth, p. 568; November-December, 2002, Christine M. Heppermann, review of Together Apart, p. 757; January-February, 2007, Christine M. Heppermann, review of Tomorrow, the River, p. 67.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2006, review of Tomorrow, the River, p. 1014.

Kliatt, November, 2000, Claire Rosser, review of Holding Up the Earth, p. 18; September, 2002, Claire Rosser, review of Together Apart, p. 9; November, 2006, Janis Flint-Ferguson, review of Tomorrow, the River, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, October 23, 2000, review of Holding Up the Earth, p. 76; September 23, 2002, review of Together Apart, p. 73.

School Library Journal, October, 2000, Elizabeth A. Kaminetz, review of Holding Up the Earth, p. 160; December, 2002, Catherine Ensley, review of Together Apart, p. 138; December, 2006, Kathryn Kosiorek, review of Tomorrow, the River, p. 140.

Voice of Youth Advocates, October, 2000, review of Holding Up the Earth, p. 264; February, 2003, review of Together Apart, p. 475.