GRANT HIER

AWARDS

Grant Hier was appointed as the inaugural Poet Laureate of the City of Anaheim (2018-2020).

Other literary honors include Prize Americana (2014) for his book Untended Garden, the Nancy Dew Taylor Prize for Literary Excellence in Poetry (2014) for his poem "The Difference Between Rattle and Settling," and the Kick Prize for poetry (2013) for his poem "Between Ellipses." He has been nominated for several other prizes.

For his community service, on behalf of the Refugee Forum of Orange County, he was named recipient of The World Refugee Day Courage Award (2019). 

In 2022 he co-founded, with Poet Laureate of Los Angeles Lynne Thompson, both “A Day of Poetry in Los Angeles” and the “Southern California Poets United for Ukraine” campaign via CORE. 

BOOKS

PRACTICE: 394 Poems in 365 Days, a poetry collection and teaching text, is forthcoming. 

Also forthcoming is California Continuum, Volume Two, a companion to California Continuum, Volume One — Migrations and Amalgamations, a book of historical flash fiction co-authored with John Brantingham, and featuring a foreword by D. J. Waldie.

Two original poetry collections by Grant were released in 2018 on Pelekinesis: The Difference Between and Similitude.

Untended Garden — Histories and Reinhabitation in Suburbia is a book-length long poem published in 2015 (The Poetry Press/Press Americana).

 

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Individual poems have been published in such literary journals as Zócalo Public Square, Interlitq: The International Literary Quarterly, LAdige, Pratik: A Magazine of Contemporary Writing, TAB: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics, Dallas Review, Anastamos, Poetry/LA, Poetry Digest, Chiron Review, Poets Against the War, Review Americana, WTC Remembrances, Omnium Gatherum Quarterly, Pearl, Blue Fifth Review Quarterly, Orange County Review, Orange Coast Review, Emrys Journal, RipRap, Re)verb, Verse-Virtual, Slipstream, City Dialogues, Tandava, Faith, Stymie, Word Riot, and others. 

Grant's poetry has also been anthologized in such books as Without a Doubt—poems illuminating faith (a New York Quarterly Anthology, 2021), Floored (Kingly Street Press, 2021), Making Up—Poems of Beauty, Reconciliation, & Invention (Picture Show Press, 2020), Orange County: A Literary Field Guide (Heyday, 2017), Love Poems (Basement Projects, 2016), Only Light Can Do That (Rattling Wall/PEN Cener USA, 2016), Monster Verse — Human and Inhuman Poems (Knopf/Everyman, 2015), and others.

Three fiction pieces were included in LA Fiction Anthology: Southland Stories by Southland Writers (Red Hen Press, 2016). A flash fiction piece from the 2018 UK Flash Fiction Festival was included in the anthology Flash Fiction Journal — Two.

 
Grant's essays and reviews have been widely published as well, including in So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, Tree Stories, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Jeffers Studies, and Explorations in English Studies — as well as in the books Teaching Composition with Literature and John Fante: A Critical Gathering.

A personal essay on the mentorship of poet Sharon Olds, "Finding a Way In: Of Axis Shifts, Unblinkingness, and Kintsugi," will appear in This Glistening Verb, an anthology out of the University of Michigan Press as part of their Under Discussion series. 

Since the 1990s Grant has served as editor, managing editor, and editor-in-chief of several literary journals and magazines. He is currently poetry editor for Chiron Review. He serves on the the advisory boards of Citric Acid and The Journal of Radical Wonder. 

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Grant penned the liner notes to the Los Lobos album, Llegó Navidad (Warner Music Group/Rhino). That writing was entered for a 2020 Grammy Award ("Best Album Notes—Grant Hier, Writer"). The band then extended the invitation to write the liner notes for their next release, Native Sons (New West Records), and that writing was entered for a 2021 Grammy Award ("Best Album Notes—Grant Hier, Writer"). Native Sons won the Grammy that year for "Best Americana Album."Grant also penned the liner notes for a special edition WAR 5-LP color vinyl box set (limited to 5,000 pressings) from Warner Music Group/Rhino), titled WAR: The Vinyl: 1971-1975.

OTHER CREATIVE WORK

In addition to writing, Grant is a musical artist, visual artist,  former graphic designer, and art director. He has recorded his original musical compositions at various studios, including as part of an A&R deal for A&M Records. His installation art has been featured in several gallery showings across Southern California.

In 2018 he wrote, produced, and performed on the double-CD JOYRIDE: Friends Take the Wheel, a companion to the book Good Morning, Aztlán: The Words, Pictures & Songs of Louie Pérez (Tia Chucha / Northwestern University Press, 2018). That recording of spoken word and music featured 50 artists, and was entered for a 2019 Grammy Award ("Best Folk Album—Grant Hier, Producer").

As a voice actor, he contributed the part of Stanley Hohner for the audiobook version of the New York Times bestseller, Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel (Penguin/Random House, 2017), by George Saunders. That recording won the 2018 Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year.

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His most recent voice work appears on My Autobiography Vol. 1 by David Greenberger, (PelPel Recordings, 2024) which also features the voices of Penn Jillette, Teller, Beth Harrington, Mike Watt, Louie Pérez, Marshall Crenshaw and others, with music by Tyson Rogers.

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EDUCATION AND TEACHING

Grant earned his BA in English from California State University at Fullerton, and both an MA in Literature and MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from California State University at Long Beach. After a decade of teaching writing at UC Irvine, he became full professor at Laguna College of Art + Design where he served as Chair of Liberal Arts and Art History and Faculty Senate President. He continues full time at LCAD, teaching courses in creative writing, literature, critical reasoning, and senior capstone