Kasey Grady

Senior Lecturer in College Writing
MFA, University of Missouri - St. Louis
MA, Truman State University
BA, Truman State University
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    • College Writing Program
    • MSC 1096-153-122
    • Washington University
    • 1 Brookings Drive
    • St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
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    Kasey Grady, who publishes under Kasey Perkins, is a teacher, freelance editor, and writer who completed her MFA in poetry from the University of Missouri - St. Louis in 2014.

    She also holds a MA in English with a focus on writing pedagogy and a BA in English with a focus on composition, both from Truman State University. In 2014, she was the recipient of the 2014 Margaret Leong Children's Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the Arcadia Ruby Irene Poetry Prize. During her time in Kirksville, MO, she was both a frequent performer and organizer in the poetry slam community. There, she taught freshman composition and creative writing at Truman State University and later freshman writing and sophomore literature at St. Charles Community College. She has also been a writing tutor for the University of Missouri St. Louis. 

    Overall, her poetry and poetry book reviews have appeared in the Chattahoochee Review, Chariton Review, Digital Americana, the Wisconsin Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, the Oracle, Lumina, and many more. Her first chapbook of poems, When the Dead Get Mail, was published by Finishing Line Press in January 2019. In addition to teaching Writing 1 and Food as Social Justice, Professor Grady currently serves as the faculty advisor for WU-SLam, Washington University's poetry slam team, and WuPR, the Washington University Political Review. She also works as a progress counselor for students on academic probation and on creating a stronger support system for first generation and low income college students (having been a first generation and low income college student herself).  Her scholarly interests include memoirs, food writing, writing pedagogy, and pop culture adaptations of classic literature. When not engrossed in the world of reading and writing, she loves to cook, entertain, watch bad television, and spend time with her husband and their three children.

    Featured Courses

    College Writing: Power & Commodity Culture

    "Commodity culture" refers to what aspects of culture can be evaluated in terms of supposed "worth" or economic value. Readings will explore a range of cultural texts and topics--whether it’s the popularity of Grey Poupon in hip hop or racial tension in the St. Louis restaurant scene, the role of smartphones and social media in the rise of self-branding, or the blurred line between high art and Instagram.

    Food Writing Workshop: From Identity to Social Justice

    From Proust's "madeleine moment," to rap songs about truffle butter and milkshakes, food is an enormous part of identity, status, and culture. As an object for analysis, food rests at the center of the intersection of race, class, gender, and more. This course will explore food from a variety of angles and, most importantly, as a mode of social justice. Based heavily on scholarly readings and weekly writing workshops, the class asks students to think and write critically about the role eating plays in their personal identity, the culture with which they or others identify, and as a way to enact equitable social change. Students will rely on analytical and research skills, with an emphasis on the idea that all writing is creative and can enact a meaningful paradigm shift-even if the subject is as seemingly innocuous as food.

      When the Dead Get Mail

      When the Dead Get Mail

      When the Dead Get Mail, from Finishing Line Press (2019), is a collection of poems that draws from working class life, loss/neglect, and the strangeness of parallel universes with unusual coincidences. From young speakers longing for the planet Saturn to older speakers reflecting on urban decay, WTDGM takes readers from rural America, to dreams, to North County St. Louis, and even to outer space.