Grace Ocasio lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband, Edwin. Poetry of hers appeared in Rattle, Drumvoices Revue, and Court Green. Besides writing poetry, she writes book reviews and reviews of literary journals. Ms. Ocasio also writes nonfiction essays as well, and her published nonfiction has appeared in publications including The Charlotte Observer, Rapid River, and InterRace. Her most recent scholastic nonfiction piece appeared in the publication, FORUM, in March 2008. Also in 2008 she won second prize for her poem, "On Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue," in the James Larkin Pearson free verse category of an annual poetry contest sponsored by the Poetry Council of North Carolina. She served, from 2001 to 2004, as a member of the advisory committee for Central Piedmont Community College’s Spring Literary Festival, an event that, for over a decade, drew national level writers as participants. She also contributed a poem, “Autumn Whirl,” to a public arts project sponsored by the Arts and Science Council of Charlotte, North Carolina; the Light Factory of Charlotte; and the Charlotte Area Transit System. She completed a residency recently at Marilyn Nelson's Soul Mountain Retreat in East Haddam, CT. She is a member of the Carolina African American Writers' Collective, the North Carolina Poetry Society, and the North Carolina Writers’ Network. She received her MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and her MA in English from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.