About Grace:

I created Grace in order to celebrate the abundance of amazing women writers of literary prose who are in a blooming, golden artistic moment that isn't getting enough attention. We do monthly readings at Mo Pitkins in New York, and a book club featuring three new books every month by women writers. (obviously, no chick lit included). The book club came about because it is so hard now to find the really great books by women in the bookstore: but these books are there! They're just not up in front, in way too many cases. Reviews Editor Emberly Nesbitt and I also blog--often about women writers but in fact our own lives as writers come into play just as much. Lately we've been giving a lot of love to our guy-writer brethren which has been a lot of fun--as important as it is to shine the spotlight on women writers, we also adore a little cross-pollination.

This big Grace endeavor--the reading series, the book club, and the blog--is named after my grandmother, Grace Merrick. She was an English teacher for nearly three decades in the high school in the small Pennsylvania town where I grew up, and I am always amazed, at the post office there or walking the dog, when her former students approach me to tell me about how she shaped their understanding of literature. (It's horrifying to me to think that the very possibility for a teacher like that in a regular little town barely exists anymore with Bush's obscenely named No Child Left Behind, which requires teachers to teach to tests. Apalling.) My grandmother was known as a challenging, tough teacher, but also an inspiring one. She was the first person in her family to go to college, in the 1920s, and didn't have her first child until she was 35, during WWII. She shocked them all again with a second child at 40, apparently unheard of, and she kept teaching (I don't think Caitlin Flanagan would have stood a chance in a room with her). She was a piece of work.

Certain elements of the spirit and community my grandmother created around herself through her job and the force of her personality seem to have become part of my literary world in Brooklyn, and I'm so grateful for that. The path she forged for herself through most of the 20th century represents some of the very best and most courageous expressions of women's gained freedoms, and is one I hope to continue here as the Grace reading series and book club does the feminist work of opening doors for the voices of women into the 21st.

--Elizabeth Merrick


Writers who read with us in 2005-2006:

DECEMBER 2006

The Grace Comics Showcase was guest-curated by Ariel Bordeaux:
I have been writing and drawing comics since 1993. RAISIN PIE is my current comic series, a "split" book I share with my husband, Rick Altergott. I self-published a mini-comic called DEEP GIRL from 1993-1995, and wrote a short graphic novel called NO LOVE LOST (1996, Drawn & Quarterly). I have contributed to several anthologies including MEASLES, HATE, BIZARRO COMICS, BOGUS DEAD, STEREOCOSMIC, DIRTY STORIES, and ACTION GIRL. I currently live in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, with my husband and our two cats.

FLY: author of many comics and zine titles including: CHRON!IC!RIOTS!PA!SM! and PEOPs. FLY also teaches Comix & Zine making Workshops at MoCCA (Museum of Comic & Cartoon art) in New York.

Ariel Schrag: Ariel Schrag is the creator of the comic books AWKWARD, DEFINITION, POTENTIAL and LIKEWISE published by Slave Labor Graphics. They chronicle her 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade experiences respectively. Ariel wrote the screen adaptation to her third book, POTENTIAL, which is being developed into a feature film by production company Killer Films. Currently, Ariel is a writer for the Showtime series The L Word. She is also the editor and a contributor to an anthology of comics about Middle School to be published in September 2007 by Viking Children's Books. Ariel is presently working on a collection of short comics titled LINEN AND THINGS.

NOVEMBER 2006

Allison Cole: If you've ever been to a crafts fair or alternative comics show, you're sure to have seen Allison Cole's work gracing the purses, bags and shelves of women who know their contemporary hip design aesthetic. Allison Cole is a Providence RI-based RISD graduate. She is an illustrator, designer, and comics artist who for the last few years has been succesfully self-publishing her own silkscreened mini-comics, stationery and button sets, along with creating designs for her vinyl tote bag and wallet collection. NEVER ENDING SUMMER her first graphic novel, was published in 2004 by Alternative Comics. More on Allison can be found at Comics of Love.

Lauren R. Weinstein's GIRL STORIES a story about a teenager who goes from being a total nerd to being kind of cool, came out in April and is already considered a classic. A high standard in the tome of women's writing in any format, her book has won the accolades of peers as well as industry critics. From Chris Ware and Ivan Brunetti to BUST magazine and all the publishing trade magazines, reviews have been effusive and her preiminence in the world of comics comes second only to her pioneering predecessors, making her work both new and timeless. More on Lauren can be found at Girl Stories Comics.

OCTOBER 2006

Megan Kelso: author of THE SQUIRREL MOTHER and QUEEN OF THE BLACK BLACK was born in Seattle, Washington in 1968. She began drawing comics in her final year at the Evergreen State College as an independent study contract for which she produced a 10 page minicomic called GIRLHERO. In 1993, she was awarded a Xeric grant, the first woman to receive that honor, and proceeded to self-publish six issues of the comic book GIRLHERO. QUEEN OF THE BLACK BLACK, a collection of short stories culled from the pages of GIRLHERO, was published in 1998 by Highwater Books. Her second book of short stories, THE SQUIRREL MOTHER, was published by Fantagraphics in the spring of 2006. In 2002, Kelso won two Ignatz Awards at the annual SPX convention for the mini-comic ARTICHOKE TALES, which contained the first chapters of that graphic novel, which will be published in its entirety in 2007 by Fantagraphics.

Gabrielle Bell: author of WHEN I'M OLD and LUCKY:
I was born in London, England, and lived there two years before my American mother split up with my English father and took my brother and I back to Detroit, Michigan, to live with my grandparents, and then to Ann Arbor. When I was five my brother and mother and stepfather all moved to California. I grew up in an isolated rural community. I spent a lot of time reading, walking in the woods and making up stories. for two summers I attended Camp Winnarainbow, a circus arts summer camp, and spent most of my time taking drama and art classes. As a teenager I attended Project Upward Bound at Humboldt University, a college program for low-income and at-risk students where I took classes in Shakespeare and composition and and decided to be a writer. When I was seventeen I left home and traveled in Europe and met the English side of my family. Eventually I moved to San Francisco where I took art classes at San Francisco Community College, worked at a long line of retail jobs, and commenced my career as a cartoonist.

MAY 2006

Cartoonist and writer Jessica Abel is the author of the new graphic novel LA PERDIDA (Pantheon Books).
Abel won both the Harvey and Lulu awards for Best New Talent in 1997. Abels Young Adult novel CARMINA is forthcoming from HarperCollins in 2007.
Abel has been teaching comics since 1998, and teaching in the Cartooning Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York since 2001.

APRIL 2006

Ellis Avery is the author of SMOKE WEEK.
Avery teaches creative writing at Columbia University. Her first novel, THE TEAHOUSE FIRE, will come out Fall 2006 from Riverhead Books.
Inspiration for the novel came from five years of weekly tea ceremony study in New York and five weeks of daily tea study in Kyoto, where Avery spent most of last year.

Shari Goldhagen is the author of FAMILY AND OTHER ACCIDENTS.
Shari Goldhagen is a native Ohioan who holds a lot of writing degrees from Big Ten Schools in the Midwest: A journalism degree from Northwestern and an MFA from Ohio State. While writing FAMILY AND OTHER ACCIDENTS, Shari stalked celebrities for The National Enquirer, Life & Style and Celebrity Living Weekly. Shari currently lives in New York City where she teaches fiction and works as a freelance writer.

MARCH 2006

Karen Schoemer has written for Newsweek, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Blender, and other publications. Her new book just out from Free Press is GREAT PRETENDERS: MY STRANGE LOVE AFFAIR WITH '50s POP MUSIC

A New-York based writer, Felicia Sullivan's work has been published in Swink, Post Road, Mississippi Review, Pindeldyboz, Publisher's Weekly, and the anthologies HOMEWRECKER AN ATLAS OF ILLICIT LOVES (Soft Skull) & MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING (Doubleday).
Algonquin Books will publish her memoir in 2007.

FEBRUARY 2006

Myla Goldberg is the author of the bestselling BEE SEASON, which was named a New York Times Notable Book in 2000 and made into a film; TIME'S MAGPIE, a book of essays about Prague; and WICKETT'S REMEDY (2005). Her short stories have appeared in Harper's and McSweeney's and on Failbetter.com.

Elizabeth Merrick is the author of the acclaimed epic novel GIRLY and the founder and curator of the Grace Reading Series and Book Club.

NOVEMBER 2005

Beth Lisick is a beloved member of San Francisco's arts community for the past ten years. A weekly columnist for the SF Gate, a contributor to public radio's This American Life, a spoken word performer, a sketch comedian, a musician, an independent film actor, and the curator of a successful reading series, Lisick lives in Berkeley with her husband and son

Rachel Kramer Bussel writes the Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice and the Girl Talk column for Penthouse, where she's a Contributing Editor. She blogs at lustylady.blogspot.com, conducts interviews for Gothamist.com and Mediabistro.com, writes book reviews for BUST and The New York Post, and edits erotic anthologies such as NAUGHTY SPANKING STORIES FROM A TO Z, 1 AND 2. She also writes about books, cupcakes, pop culture, and sex, sometimes all at once.

OCTOBER 2005

Holiday Reinhorn is a graduate of The University of Washington and The Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is a recipient of a Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction, a Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellowship from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and was a finalist for the PEN/Amazon.com Short Story Award. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared in Zoetrope, Ploughshares, Tin House, Other Voices, Columbia, and Northwest Review, among others. Ms. Reinhorn is also the co-producer and writer of Last Seen, an independent feature film based on her short story by the same name, which screened at The Mill Valley Film Festival, The Central Standard Film Festival and The International Digital Festival at The Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis. Ms. Reinhorn lives in Los Angeles, California with two pit bulls, a young son and her husband, actor Rainn Wilson. BIG CATS (Free Press, 2005) is her first book.

Kathleen Hughes is the author of the novel, DEAR MRS. LINDBERGH (WW Norton 2003). She graduated fromYale University and the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her fiction and journalism have been published in The Talking River Review, Pieces: A Collection of New Voices (MTV Books, 2000), and in the Boston Phoenix newspaper. A native of Indiana, Ms. Hughes now lives in Rhode Island with her husband, young daughter, and dog. She teaches high school English.

"Kathleen Hughes...has written her first novel and it is deeply moving, emotionally truthful, and seemingly effortless...Hughes' novel is richly detailed and filled with the dynamic interplay of family and friends, the past and the present, the lure of flight, and transcendence and the alternate pull of earth and responsibilities...[T]his is a wonderful, life-generating book, as deep in shadow as it is luminous in light."
-The Providence Journal

SEPTEMBER 2005

Jill Soloway is a writer and Co-Executive Producer on HBO's Six Feet Under. She was born and raised in Chicago, where she and her sister Faith created the generation-defining stage phenomenon, The Real Live Brady Bunch, which eventually toured the country and the world. She and her sister also created, directed and performed in hit alternative plays including The Miss Vagina Pageant and Not Without My Nipples. Jill created Sit n' Spin, a twice monthly, standing-room-only night of comedic monologues and music, which runs every other Thursday at the Comedy Central Workspace in Los Angeles. Alan Ball, creator of Six Feet Under, describes Jill's 'womanifesto' TINY LADIES IN SHINY PANTS (Free Press): 'Hilarious, painful, angry and astute, TINY LADIES IN SHINY PANTS is a great read -- a dryly funny chronicle of one woman's journey to live a meaningful life in an increasingly meaningless culture.'