Virginia Grise

Early life and education

Grise grew up in San Antonio, Texas. Her father, Ronald Grise is from Goshen, Indiana and her mother, Emma Lesi Grise (née Yee) is from Monterrey, Mexico. Her maternal grandfather Manuel Yee was from Canton, China.

In 1998 Grise received her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in History and Spanish with a minor in Chicano Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Grise also studied critical pedagogy and second language acquisition at the University of Texas and also earned her teaching certificate to teach English and Spanish as a secondary language. Grise has more than 15 years of teaching experience.

In 2009, she received her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Writing for Performance from California Institute of the Arts. Her play blu, was developed at Cal Arts as her MFA thesis project under the mentorship of Carl Hancock Rux. Grise at the time was living in Boyle Heights and said, "every time I saw or heard helicopters I wrote a poem." These poems eventually transformed into the play blu, which is about a Chicano family (raised by two queer women) that tries to envision a life and sky free of police and helicopters. Themes in blu are prison, war, state violence and desire.

Career

While teaching in Austin, Texas, Grise coordinated a series of writing workshop at the Travis County Juvenile Detention Center and Austin High School with La Peña Cultural Arts Center and Resistencia Bookstore . At the request of one of the students in the program, Grise read her first poem publicly at the juvenile detention center and later went on to study writing with Bridgforth. In addition to working with Bridgforth, Grise was a member of the Austin Project produced by Omi Osun and Joni Jones from 2003-2006. As a member of The Austin Project, she was introduced to experimental artists such as Erik Ehn, Robbie McCauley, Laurie Carlos, Daniel Alexander Jones and Carl Hancock Rux.

Grise has also been a guest lecturer and held writing workshops. In 2012, Grise served as a Visiting Writer in the Department of English and Literature at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA. She has been invited to share her works at universities including University of Southern California, Vassar College, Brown University, and Cornell University, to name a few

Activism

Grise began activism as a teenager as being part of the Brady Greene Teen Advisory Board, where she taught sexuality education classes in local high schools. She was also a founding member of Acción Zapatista, an organization in Austin, Texas, committed to spreading history of the Zapatistas (Mexican Revolution), and other pro-Democracy movements in Mexico. As a member of Acción Zapatista, Grise served as an international peace observer in Chiapas, Mexico and organized protests, community forums, and attended the Intercontinental Encuentro Against Neo-Liberalism.

Grise was also a writing, directing, performing and founding member of Teatro Callejero, at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio Texas. The street theatre created performances around important issues affecting the city of Austin such as environmental racism and gentrification.

And as a middle school teacher at Kazen Middle School in San Antonio, Texas, Grise was an organizing member of Books in Barrio, a grassroots organization that successfully launched a campaign to locate a bookstore in a predominantly Mexican and working class community on the South Side of San Antonio.

Currently, she works with prison abolitionists and community organizations that are teaching inside women's prisons.

Awards and honors