Henry Alley
About Henry
Henry Alley is a writer of fiction and literary criticism. His background includes over sixty stories published over the past fifty years, in such journals as Colere, Seattle Review, Cimarron Review, Oxford Magazine, Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly, Webster Review, Gertrude, Outerbridge, Clackamas Literary Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. In addition he has five novels: Through Glass (Iris Press, 1979), The Lattice (Ariadne Press, 1986), Umbrella of Glass (Breitenbush Books, 1988), Precincts of Light (Inkwater Press, 2010), and Men Touching (Chelsea Station Editions, 2019). Of Men Touching, Lambda Review has written, “So many things make up a successfully written novel—two of the most important being plot and character. Henry Alley masters both in his latest novel, Men Touching, but it’s his characters, both three-dimensional and subtly nuanced, that drive the narrative with their convincing faults and merits. . . . This is the real genius in Alley’s work—his beautifully drawn characters. You feel you know them; their motives, their attributes, their flaws all touch you deeply.”
Henry is also the author of a collection of stories, The Dahlia Field (Chelsea Station Editions, 2017). Kirkus Review gave it a star and, as one of the Best Indie Books of 2017, called it “funny, poignant, and engrossing… A fine collection that explores and celebrates the ebb and flow of gay life.”
A story of his was also chosen for Best Gay Stories 2017, and in the same year, he was awarded a Mill House Residency by Writing by Writers. In 2015 he won the Gertrude Press Short Story Contest. Gertrude Press also selected his story, “Leonardo and I,” as winner of its 2006 fiction chapbook award. Of his fiction in general, Christopher Bram has written, “Henry Alley is an excellent writer. His fiction is artfully artless, clear, concise, and real. Best of all, he regularly tells stories that nobody else is telling.”
Henry received his B.A. from Stanford University, and his M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Ph.D. in Prose Fiction from Cornell University. He grew up in Seattle, Washington, and has lived in a variety of places in the U.S. As a professor of English and Literature, he has taught, from 1972 to 2016, at the School of the Ozarks, the University of Idaho and for forty-four years in the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon. He has written numerous scholarly articles, many on them centered on George Eliot as well as the classics. In 1997, University of Delaware Press published his scholarly study, The Quest for Anonymity: The Novels of George Eliot. He has been president twice of his local Lane Literary Guild and for 2020-21 moderated a reading series of poetry, creative nonfiction and fiction. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, with his husband, Austin Gray.
Henry Alley is a writer of fiction and literary criticism. His background includes over sixty stories published over the past fifty years, in such journals as Colere, Seattle Review, Cimarron Review, Oxford Magazine, Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly, Webster Review, Gertrude, Outerbridge, Clackamas Literary Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. In addition he has five novels: Through Glass (Iris Press, 1979), The Lattice (Ariadne Press, 1986), Umbrella of Glass (Breitenbush Books, 1988), Precincts of Light (Inkwater Press, 2010), and Men Touching (Chelsea Station Editions, 2019). Of Men Touching, Lambda Review has written, “So many things make up a successfully written novel—two of the most important being plot and character. Henry Alley masters both in his latest novel, Men Touching, but it’s his characters, both three-dimensional and subtly nuanced, that drive the narrative with their convincing faults and merits. . . . This is the real genius in Alley’s work—his beautifully drawn characters. You feel you know them; their motives, their attributes, their flaws all touch you deeply.”
Henry is also the author of a collection of stories, The Dahlia Field (Chelsea Station Editions, 2017). Kirkus Review gave it a star and, as one of the Best Indie Books of 2017, called it “funny, poignant, and engrossing… A fine collection that explores and celebrates the ebb and flow of gay life.”
A story of his was also chosen for Best Gay Stories 2017, and in the same year, he was awarded a Mill House Residency by Writing by Writers. In 2015 he won the Gertrude Press Short Story Contest. Gertrude Press also selected his story, “Leonardo and I,” as winner of its 2006 fiction chapbook award. Of his fiction in general, Christopher Bram has written, “Henry Alley is an excellent writer. His fiction is artfully artless, clear, concise, and real. Best of all, he regularly tells stories that nobody else is telling.”
Henry received his B.A. from Stanford University, and his M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Ph.D. in Prose Fiction from Cornell University. He grew up in Seattle, Washington, and has lived in a variety of places in the U.S. As a professor of English and Literature, he has taught, from 1972 to 2016, at the School of the Ozarks, the University of Idaho and for forty-four years in the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon. He has written numerous scholarly articles, many on them centered on George Eliot as well as the classics. In 1997, University of Delaware Press published his scholarly study, The Quest for Anonymity: The Novels of George Eliot. He has been president twice of his local Lane Literary Guild and for 2020-21 moderated a reading series of poetry, creative nonfiction and fiction. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, with his husband, Austin Gray.
Now Available for Preorder!
Galen's Legacy
Imprisonment gives you time to think. Who gets your attention, the gay uncle who died of AIDS and has special wishes, and was like a father to you, or your distant, enterprising and sometimes disapproving mother? It can be all the more confusing when you think that your dead uncle is sending you messages. In his forties, Galen Melville, an openly gay man, emerges from prison in the mid-1990s, exonerated from a crime he did not commit. Now free, Galen returns to the idyllic landscape of his Oregon hometown whose center is the eccentric Vondel hotel run by his quirky Dutch family. Suddenly he discovers that perhaps the ghost of his beloved uncle is afoot in the bequeathed abandoned mansion across the street and perceives mysterious signs of guidance in his search for right relationships with his young son and grown daughter. In the quest to find himself, he hooks up with two muscular and beautiful men, Anton the landscaper, Brent, the physical therapist, one older and one younger. He also fights to establish his uncle’s mansion as a refuge for gay and lesbian people. As though presented in a landscape in a Renaissance painting, this sensually evoked, affirmative, often comic, sometimes sexually explicit novel follows Galen through a slowly evolving pastoral world, made vivid and scenic in cadenced, riveting prose, where his mother finds a renewed sense of her poetic vocation, his father finds sobriety, and his older lover discovers his roots and liberation from the closet. Truly this novel underlines Christopher Bram’s comment, “Henry Alley is an excellent writer. His fiction is artfully artless, clear, concise, and real. Best of all, he regularly tells stories that nobody else is telling,” and Lambda Review’s summing up, “This is the real genius in Alley’s work—his beautifully drawn characters. You feel you know them; their motives, their attributes, their flaws all touch you deeply.”
$17.49
Henry Alley Reads from Galen's Legacy
Galen and Anton
Henry Alley reads from his new novel, Galen’s Legacy. In this excerpt, Galen and Anton are in Amsterdam, with Galen’s family. It’s a journey of discovery. Galen has long admired Anton. In this segment, amidst the ambiance of Amsterdam, Galen and Anton take the next step.
Christabel & Eugene
Galen has traveled to Amsterdam with his family, his son, mother, and Anton, a prospective boyfriend. Birthplace and home to both Christabel and her brother Eugene until they fled to the United States to avoid the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Christabel, like the others, is also on a journey of discovery. Once a published poet, a collection of her poetry, “Pluto’s Bells,” has been re-released in English and Dutch. Christabel is at a reading in this segment, reading from her poetry, But she also stops to remember. She remembers Eugene, Galen’s uncle, who was also gay and became like a second father to Galen. She recognizes her brother’s dedication and courage.
Other Books and Stories by Henry Alley
- Through Glass (novel, Iris Press, 1979)
- The Lattice (novel, Ariadne Press, 1986)
- Umbrella of Glass (novel, Breitenbush Books, 1988)
- The Quest for Anonymity: The Novels of George Eliot (literary criticism, University of Delaware Press, 1997)
- Precincts of Light (novel, Inkwater Press, 2010)
- The Dahlia Field (short story collection, Chelsea Station Editions, 2017)
- Men Touching (novel, Chelsea Station Editions, 2019)