This tickles her she thinks of herself as a shy person, and when you praise her work, a self-conscious hand rises to cover her eyes and smile. Gay is 39 now, and over the last 18 years she has published countless pieces of fiction and non-fiction, only to find herself described in recent months as an overnight sensation. The year had been an adventure – a liberation, but not a resolution. Her parents eventually tracked her down – thanks, she suspects, to a private investigator – and she moved back to Nebraska to be near them, enrolling at another university to finish her studies.
