Maureen Grady

Maureen Grady is both an Irish and American citizen. She is a writer, actor, producer and teacher. She has taught British and Irish Literature, Shakespeare, and Creative Writing for many years. Her private creative writing conservatory has nurtured many young women writers. She is deeply fortunate to have had John L’Heureux at Stanford University as her professor, mentor and dear friend for decades. She has studied with gifted teacher and poet, Jack Grapes, in Los Angeles for years and had the recent joy to guide him and his wife Dr. Lori Grapes on a Bloomsday tour of Dublin. Maureen studied with Seamus Heaney years ago at the Yeats summer intensive in Ireland and attended Eavan Boland’s inspiring “Poetry and Poetics” class at Stanford. She has won two teaching prizes: the student-nominated "One of LA’s Most Inspiring Teachers", and a national recognition for teaching creative writing from Scholastic Books given at Carnegie Hall by Tony Kushner.

Maureen is a graduate of Stanford University with a BA in literature. She also has a Masters in Theatre. She has worked in both the film industry and the theatre. Aside from small parts in film or on stage as an actor, she has acted as assistant to the director and as a dramaturg at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre, associate producer on the award-winning short film "The Witness", assistant to the director on several feature films, and on the Broadway play "Total Abandon" and "Henry IV, Part 1" at the Kennedy Center. After teaching high school seniors for years, she formed College Bound to work privately with incoming seniors on finding their true voice for college essays and supplements. Maureen is currently at work on her first play "In the Hollow" and hopes to direct her short film "Saintling" in the west of Ireland. She is involved with "The Rising", the first feature film about the 1916 Easter Rising. She recently acted in the acclaimed Italian film "Euforia" which premiered at the Cannes film festival. She volunteers for the Irish Screen LA & NYC film festivals, CIACLA, for progressive political candidates and human rights causes. Maureen has two beloved grown children, and divides her time between Ireland, Italy and America.