Tom Grimes

Who is Tom Grimes?

Tom Grimes is an American novelist, playwright, and creative writing instructor. He is the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Texas State University in San Marcos.

Grimes was a promising student at the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop while it was under the direction of Frank Conroy, author of the memoir Stop-Time. Grimes’ own memoir, Mentor: A Memoir, is largely concerned with his time in Iowa and his friendship with Conroy, who Grimes first met while writing and working as a waiter in Key West. Grimes has described Mentor as the autobiography of a “failed novelist.” Grimes’ chronicle of failing to realize high expectations of him as a writer has arguably proven to be his greatest literary success thus far.

After Iowa Grimes was recruited to head the fledgling MFA program at Texas State. Grimes’ stewardship has elevated the program to national prominence, and has attracted visiting writers and faculty such as Tim O’Brien, ZZ Packer, Robert Stone, Dagoberto Gilb, and Debra Monroe. Texas State's MFA program broke into the Top Fifty in Poets & Writers' rankings of graduate writing programs for the application year 2012.