Tracey, Grant 1960-

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TRACEY, Grant 1960-

(Grant Annis George Tracey)

PERSONAL: Born 1960, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; married; wife's name Karen (an educator); children: Caitlin, Elizabeth, Devin. Education: Trent University, Ontario, B.A.; Kansas State University, M.A.; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Ph.D. Hobbies and other interests: Playing drums in a cow punk band, coaching soccer, watching Maple Leaf hockey games.

ADDRESSES: Home—Cedar Falls, IA. Office—Department of English Language and Literature, University of Northern Iowa, Baker Hall 128, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0502. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Educator and writer. University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, assistant professor, then associate professor of English, coordinator of creative writing, 1996–.

WRITINGS:

Filmography of American History, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2002.

Parallel Lines and the Hockey Universe (short stories), Pocol Press (Clifton, VA), 2003.

Fiction editor for North American Review. Contributor to numerous publications, including Journal of Film and Video, Film Noir Reader 2, Kansas Quarterly, and Aethlon.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A collection titled Playing Mac, and Other Stories.

SIDELIGHTS: An educator who specializes in film studies, creative writing, and popular culture, Grant Tracey is the author of a book about films and a collection of short stories. In Filmography of American History, Tracey creates a guide for teachers as he discusses more than 200 feature and documentary films that depict various American historical events and periods. In addition to looking at films that cover major events like the U.S. Civil War and World War II, the author also includes movies that depict other aspects of American history and culture, such as the immigrant experience and the civil rights movement. Listing films from the silent era onward, Tracey arranges the films alphabetically but sites them according to fourteen chapters focusing on historical eras, such as "America before the Civil War," "Postwar Alienation and Despair, 1946–1962," and "Watergate, Political Cynicism, and Hope, 1972-Present." For all the films cited in the book, Tracey includes plot summaries and other pertinent information as well as sources for further reading. The book also features indexes for multicultural and woman-centered films. A contributor to Booklist noted that the book contains "some glaring errors" but added that it "is a worthwhile purchase for libraries with extensive film collections." Anthony J. Adam, writing in the Library Journal, commented that "the unexpected selections throughout should stimulate teachers to expand their syllabuses."

In his collection of short stories, Parallel Lines and the Hockey Universe, Tracey focuses on characters who are all associated in some way with a Macedonian family named Traicheff. Most of the stories deal with various aspects of pop culture, from films and junior league hockey to rock musicians like Iggy Pop. Writing for H-Net Reviews Online, Glynn A. Leyshon expressed confusion over the author's "purpose" in making constant references to music, and suggested that many of the stories' "incidents mean more to the author than to the reader." Nevertheless, Leyshon added that "this book of short stories is not without merit. There is a grittiness about the stories that as unsophisticated and simple as they are, creates an appeal, a harkening to a simpler time and a simpler life."