Emilio DeGrazia

Emilio DeGrazia, a long-time resident of Winona, Minnesota, began publishing poetry and creative prose in1973, and founded Great River Review, the state's most enduring small press literary magazine, in 1977. A first collection of short fiction, Enemy Country (New Rivers, 1984), was selected by Anne Tyler for a Writer's Choice Award, and a novel, Billy Brazil (New Rivers, 1991), was chosen for a Minnesota Voices Project award. A second collection, Seventeen Grams of Soul (Lone Oak Press), received a Minnesota Book Award in 1995, and Lone Oak published a second novel, A Canticle for Bread and Stones, in 1996.

In June, 2002, his two-act drama Winona: A Romantic Tragedy was produced. He and his wife Monica have co-edited two anthologies for Nodin Press of Minneapolis, Twenty-Six Minnesota Writers (1995) and Thirty-Three Minnesota Poets (2000),both of them Minnesota Book Award nominees. They also co-edited a poetry collection by Jack Lucas entitled It Came to Pass, published by Great River Review in December, 2002.

Recently DeGrazia published Burying the Tree, his first collection of essays, a memoir (of sorts) called Walking on Air in a Field of Greens, and Seasonings, his first collection of poetry. He also has a blogsite called "Downstream" with the Twin Cities Daily Planet.

His secret desire has always been to be a poet when he grows up. In 2012 he was named to a two year term as official Poet Laureate of Winona, MN.