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“I’m not pulling your leg,” she said.
The Winona author is nominated for a Minnesota Book Award for her children’s novel “Tomorrow, the River.” She will find out tonight if she wins.
“I don’t care if I win,” Gray said.
That’s ironic, considering she had hoped for both of her first two books, “Holding Up the Earth” and “Together Apart,” to win. Neither was nominated.
“When I stopped wishing for it, it happened,” she said.
Gray, 60, had her first book published in 2000. She has been a computer programmer, systems analyst and information system manager, but writing has been her passion.
She says she writes the books she would’ve liked to have read while growing up.
Her first began as a six-page writing exercise about her childhood for a class at Hamline University in
St. Paul. Gray’s teacher told her she had the beginnings of a children’s book. Gray rewrote and revised the six pages, taking over a year to turn it into a manuscript.
“Writing is tedious,” Gray said. “You know where you want to go, but you just want to get there.”
After a flood of rejection letters, Gray decided to send it out to well-known publishing companies. Houghton Mifflin accepted it and has published her two subsequent books.
“Tomorrow, the River” is about a 14-year-old girl and her train journey in the summer of 1896 from her home in Nebraska to Burlington, Iowa. From there, she begins a journey up the Mississippi River with her big sister’s family on their river boat, the Oh My.
Gray says her books parallel her own life, even though the characters are much younger.
“It didn’t dawn on me while writing them. It shows what power our subconscious has,” Gray said.
Besides being excited about her nomination, Gray is happy to have a bench in the children’s portion of the Winona Public Library that bears her and her book’s name.
“It’s like getting a bronze statue,” Gray said.
Sure, it’d be nice to win the award, but Gray says she hasn’t worried about writing an acceptance speech. She’s just happy that the nomination means more people will hear about her book and possibly read it. And she’s thrilled to have established herself as a writer, even if it did come later in life.
“I think we all have our own gifts,” Gray said. “If you don’t know what yours is, it means you’re not paying enough attention.”
At a glance
Winona author Dianne Gray’s novel “Tomorrow, the River” is nominated for a Minnesota Book Award. The awards will be announced tonight at a
ceremony in St. Paul.
To find out more about the author, visit her Web site at www.prairievoices.com.
Contact Käri Knutson at kknutson@winonadailynews.com or (507) 453-3523.
A great writer wrote on May 5, 2007 8:09 AM: