A leading authority on journalism, feminism, James Joyce, and Beat writers, Grace
is the author of several books that tackle contemporary American literature.
She is a native of rural Ohio whose fascination
with urban environments and their effect on gender and creativity
have been a theme of her work.
Her current book, with which she assisted author Elizabeth Von Vogt,
is
681 Lexington Avenue: A Beat Education in New York City, 1947-1954.
Grace's earlier publications include
The Feminized Male Character in Twentieth-Century Fiction, as well as
two recent titles on women of the Beat Generation,
Breaking the Rule of Cool: Interviewing and Reading Beat Women Writers
and
Girls Who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation, which she
edited.
Her previous book
Jack Kerouac and the Literary Imagination came out in 2006 to coincide
with the 50th anniversary of On the Road, the pioneering
stream-of-consciousness travelogue that Kerouac wrote almost entirely on a
role of paper. In one of the most thorough assessments of the artist's
intellectual influences, Grace "explores Kerouac's fiction, poetry,
religious writing, private journals, and correspondence as literary texts
revealing his aesthetic vision for American" literature.
An early adopter of technology in the English and composition
curricula, Grace is a sought-out authority on interdisciplinary programs
that stimulate faculty and student creativity. She is currently a professor
of English at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Grace cofounded the
Beat
Studies Association in 2005 and serves on its executive board.
