Michael Loyd Gray was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, but grew up in Champaign, Illinois. He is the author of eight published books of fiction, more than sixty published short stories, and is a member of the Society of Midland Authors. Gray earned a MFA from Western Michigan University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois. He lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with three cats and a lot of electric guitars.
“Despite early influences from writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Bobbie Ann Mason, Charles Portis, Joseph Heller, and others, I developed my own style and ability to fashion voices suitable for the characters I create. As a guitar player, I’ve learned that tone and pacing and rhythm are as important in writing as in music. I write powered by the notion that writing is music. I want readers to decode what they hear and feel. I mostly just want readers to believe the characters could be real people and to then enjoy peeking into the drama of those lives.” – Michael Loyd Gray
Gray’s novella Busted Flat, winner of a Literary Titan Gold Award and finalist for an Eric Hoffer Award, was released in October 2024. His novella Donovan’s Revolution, winner of a 2025 International Impact Award for Contemporary Fiction, a Literary Titan Gold Award, and a 2025 Book Excellence Award for Historical Fiction, was released in June 2024. Released in February 2025 – Night Hawks, a novella. Gray’s first novel, Well Deserved, won the 2008 Sol Books Prose Series Prize. His story “Little Man” won both the Alligator Juniper Fiction Prize and Writers Place Award for Fiction in 2005. He is the recipient of a fiction grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation.
Regal House Publishing is proud to bring you Emperor of the Mundane in 2027.
