Stephanie Gray is a teacher, writer, poet and
filmmaker with an interest in the intersection of language, the
city and class, and how these areas can work together and lead to
discovery in both the exploration of writing at-large, and in first
year college writing (composition).
She received an MFA in 2010 from Long Island University-Brooklyn
where she focused on poetry writing, contemporary literature, and
completed her thesis, a collection of poems, under the advisement
of poet Lewis Warsh. While at LIU, to help pay for her classes,
each semester for nearly two years she worked as a writing center
tutor with the same nine students every week in one hour
sessions.
She is the author of a book of poems, Heart Stoner
Bingo (Straw Gate Books, 2007) and a recent chapbook I
Thought You Said It Was Sound / How Does That Sound (Portable
Press at Yo Yo Labs, 2012). Poetry magazine publications include
Sentence, Aufgabe, Brooklyn Rail, EOAGH, 2ndAvenuePoetry, Boog
City Reader, and The Recluse. Reading series where
she’s read live with her films include Segue and the Poetry Project
Friday night series. Her recent film You know they want to
disappear Hell’s Kitchen as Clinton, a poetic film letter to
E.B. White’s classic 1940s essay Here is NY, was included
in the 2011 Black Maria Film Festival Tour where it was one of 10
Jury’s Choice First Prizes. Her experimental / city symphony / and
queer-themed films have screened internationally at festivals such
as Viennale, Oberhausen, Ann Arbor, Chicago Underground, and queer
fests such Frameline, MixNYC, and Inside Out.
She received her BA from Reed College in Portland Oregon where
she focused on poetry, modern and contemporary literature and
philosophy; her undergraduate thesis was a collection of poems
exploring border, language, working class, and bi-cultural/TexMex
themes, written under the advisement of fellow working-class border
raised poet Maxine Scates.
She has received grants and residencies for her film work,
including a NY Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, distribution and
finishing fund grants from the NY State Council on the Arts, and a
residency at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. She has also
served on city and statewide film grant panels for individual
artists. In what might be a lesser-known detail about Stephanie,
that doesn't even surface on the internet since it was pre-internet
age, she was the city-wide poetry slam champion in Portland Oregon
in 1993
Weblinks:
Book of poems: "Heart Stoner Bingo" (2007, Straw Gate Books)http://www.leafscape.org/StrawGateBooks/featuring.html
Recent Chapbook: "I Thought You Said It Was Sound / How Does
That Sound " (June 2012, Portable Press at Yo Yo Labs)http://yoyolabs.com/ithoughtyousaid.html
An introduction to a reading/film screening:
http://whof.blogspot.com/2009/01/stephanie-gray-segue-series.html