Seizing the Opportunity: Grace Carras Becomes an Opportunity Arts Affiliate.

Grace Carras is a spoken word poet from Midland, MI. The winner of the 2019 Mark Ritzenhein Emerging Poet Award, Grace holds two Bachelor of Arts Degrees from Michigan State University, one in Arts & Humanities, and the other in English. She has lead creative writing workshops at the Alden B. Dow Home & Studio, itself a National Historic Landmark, and currently runs a spoken word poetry workshop and performance for the Midland Center for the Arts. Finishing Line Press will be publishing her first book ‘Quiet Kid’ in 2020.

In 2018, her poem “for the poets who gather here” was selected by the Lansing Sidewalk Poetry Competition to be one of only eight poems etched in the foundation of Michigan’s Capital City. The poem will be a fixture in Lansing’s REO Town neighborhood for decades to come. Grace was a semifinalist in the 2018 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI), where she and her team achieved a Top 10 finish out of 64 universities represented. This was the first team from MSU to attend the invitational in over a decade. 

She is a co-founder of The Poetry Room in Lansing, MI, where she was also co-host for two years. She has performed at prestigious Mid-Michigan performing venues including The Robin Theatre & The Loft. She has also been a featured performer for The Artist’s Umbrella, and has opened for distinguished poets such as Neil Hilborn & Olivia Gatwood. Grace has been featured on HOMTV & The Mike Bass Podcast, and in The State News, The Midland Daily News, Catalyst Midland, The Lansing City Pulse, and The Lansing State Journal.  

For more information on Grace & her work visit:
www.facebook.com/GraceCarrasPoet/