AWARDS & HONORS

MaraLee Grayson

RACIAL LITERACY EDUCATOR/RESEARCHER/WRITER

"Mara Lee Grayson is one of an emerging generation of composition and rhetoric scholars who are not only writing at the leading edge of research in our field, but whose activism is transforming our profession."

- Dr. Frankie Condon, associate professor, University of Waterloo





  • Sutton Award for Research in English, $6,055, California State University, Dominguez Hills, 2021 – for Antisemitism and the White Supremacist Imaginary: Contradictions and Conflations in Composition and Rhetoric
  • Second Place, Anne Spencer Memorial Prize, 2022 
  • Finalist, Kay Murphy Prize for Poetry, 2022 
  • Pushcart Prize Nomination, 2021 - for "Kettle of Fish"
  • Pushcart Prize Nomination, 2020 - for "34 Years Later"
  • Faculty Research Grant, $6,055, California State University, Dominguez Hills, 2020 – for Building Racial Literacy into First-Year Composition: Studying a Faculty Development Program toward Equitable Writing Instruction
  • Continuous Improvement Faculty Professional Development Grant, $17,960, California State University, Dominguez Hills, 2019 – for Building Racial Literacy into First Year Composition: A Faculty Development Program toward Equitable Writing Instruction
  • Faculty Legacy Fund Grant, $2,650, California State University, Dominguez Hills, 2019 – for Building Racial Literacy into First Year Composition: Evaluating a Faculty Development Program toward Equitable Writing Instruction
  • CCCC Emergent Researcher Grant, 2019 - for "An Ideology of Apologia"
  • Mark Reynolds TETYC Best Article Award, 2018 - for "Race Talk in the Composition Classroom: Narrative Song Lyrics as Texts for Racial Literacy"
  • Doctoral Dissertation Grant, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2017 - for Racial Literacy
    in the College Composition Classroom: Developing Discursive Practices through Critical Writing and Textual Analysis

  • Provost’s Grant for Professional Development, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2016 - for Positionality
    and (Re)Presentation: Exploring the Narrative Self in Creative Nonfiction

  • Innovation Scholarship for Student Research, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2016 - for Racial Literacy
    in the College Composition Classroom: Developing Discursive Practices through Critical Writing and Textual Analysis

  • Poetry Outreach Service Award, 2012
  • Goodman Fund Grant, The City College of New York, 2010 - for Legacies of Spain