An interview with Devin Grayson

A Shameless web exclusive

By Shane Dingman

Continued from page 15

Current status? Single? Dating? Married?

I refuse to marry until every consenting adult who wants to can. Right now I consider it an elitist and faltering institution (54 percent failure rate? Pass, thanks!). So, yes, I am both single and dating.

Sign?

“Keep Left”

(Cancer)

Current residence? (city, not looking for mailing address!)

Oakland, CA.

Still living with three folks? Describe in more detail home situation, house, apartment, rent, buy?

No, I own my own house in Oakland now — a duplex, actually, that I purchased with a friend from high school. It has a lovely home office slightly separated from the living space, which I really enjoy. But as I write this, I’m on my laptop in the house I used to live in with the three people (now six). I visit here a couple times a week, and the little girl who was 19 months old when I wrote my website bio is now five.

What are your current projects, I know you’re working on the novel, (details if you can share any, would be awesome) but what else is coming up?

My current project right now is this interview! Holy crap, this is long! ::laughs::

Let’s see, I’m still on Nightwing (with new artist Phil Hester), Matador is about to come out (with the incomparable Brian Stelfreeze), I just finished what is erroneously called YEAR ONE: Batman/Ra’s al Ghul (it has nothing to do with “year one” — it’s Batman current time and Ra’s years, like, 356 and 592 — I have no idea why they named it that) with Paul Gullacy, and the novel is my third for DC/ Time Warner Aspect, this one a DCU Batman team-up story guest-starring Green Arrow (Ollie) and Aquaman, in addition to Nightwing, Arsenal, and Tempest. It’s set in Gotham, more or less current time, and deals with the current political climate in Qurac (from the DCU Atlas and not to be confused with Iraq, it’s actually more like Saudi Arabia or, really, Hiroshima) and relationships between fathers and sons.

Type 1-diabetes: in your words, you said once you’ve had it since 15, what physical challenges does it present to you?

These are fun questions? ;-P Well, I’m insulin-dependent, and self-administer three to four injections a day, so the biggest impact it has on my life is the need to always be thinking ahead — I can’t just decide to go out to dinner with a friend if I haven’t brought my insulin along, and I need to remain cognizant about my eating schedule and blood glucose levels, which becomes especially important (and tricky) when I’m exercising or traveling through time zones or ill. Most of what you have to do to take care of diabetes is what you should be doing to take care of yourself anyway, though. I think I get tired faster than other people sometimes, at least when my blood sugars are out of range, but these days it’s a fairly manageable condition.

You studied Kaje Kempo? A martial art? What drew you to that? And have your interests taken you to any other physical pursuits?

Kaje Kempo is a hard-style Karate / Jujitsu form developed partially from Chuan Fa as a branch of Kajukenbo. I just wanted to learn a martial art and stumbled into a school that happened to be teaching that style, but I really love it, it borrows a lot from other techniques and works very well as a self-defense basic. I also study yoga and am interested in taking kickboxing, but make no mistake about it, if I want to keep a roof over my head, I need to spend about ninety-eight hours a week in a chair.