Tom Graves

Quick Facts

Full Name	Tom Graves
Occupation	Writer
Date Of Birth	Jul 7, 1954(1954-07-07)
Age	70
Birthplace	St. Petersburg
Country	United States
Birth City	Florida
Horoscope	Cancer

Tom Graves Biography

Tom Graves is one of the most popular and richest Writer who was born on July 7, 1954 in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. Thomas Alan Graves (born July 7, 1954 , in Memphis, Tennessee) is a American journalist as well as a nonfiction writer and novelist. He is most well-known for his work as writer of Crossroads the autobiography on blues legend Robert Johnson. He is also famous for his role as a Writer and Producer in the film that won an Emmy award Best of Enemies. He is also co-owner of independently-owned publishing firm The Devault-Graves Agency and is an Assistant Professor with tenure in English in LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis.

Rock & Roll Disc magazine was discontinued in 1992. Unwillingly, Graves found employment again as a journalist for communications and public relations companies. After a while, he was tired of corporate writing, despite the money it generated, Graves was urged to go back to University of Memphis to earn an M.F.A. for Creative Writing, which would enable for him to be a college instructor. He was accepted into the M.F.A. program in 1995 , as the first student to major on Creative Nonfiction. In 1998, he released his first novel The novel Pullers that astonished readers and coworkers who were thinking of Graves as a solely nonfiction writer. It was released by Hastings House of Connecticut, though the book was released by the subsidiary to Hastings House, Rosset-Morgan Books One of the owners was the famous author Barney Rosset of Grove Press fame. The book, despite sales being moderate, got good review and blurbs by authors like Harry Crews, Charles Gaines as well as Dave Marsh. It’s still a beloved for fans of hard Southern gritty lit.

In 2007 Graves published a biography of bluesman Robert Johnson, Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson with DeMers Books of Spokane, Washington. Now considered by many blues scholars the definitive book on the subject, Graves debunked many of the myths surrounding Johnson including the taken-as-gospel tale that Johnson was poisoned with strychnine by a jealous husband. He also corrected the legend of the crossroads and reiterated that the crossroads myth was intended for bluesman Tommy Johnson and not Robert Johnson. The book was hailed by numerous blues and music magazines, blues societies, and blues fans including a ringing endorsement from the notoriously negative Steve LaVere, who controlled the Robert Johnson estate. The book won the Blues Foundation’s prestigious Keeping the Blues Alive Award (formerly known as the Handy Awards) in Literature for 2010.

In 2010 Graves acquired a video set of the 12 acrimonious debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. that aired on television in 1968 as a part of the ABC network’s Presidential convention coverage. Graves had over several decades attempted to acquire the videos from ABC which consistently turned him down. Graves had wanted to write about the debates ever since he was a freshman in college and had never let the idea slip away. He learned that an associate of Vidal’s had wangled a set of the tapes from ABC, but they were to be exclusively for Vidal’s usage. Graves convinced Vidal’s associate of his good intentions and was allowed to duplicate the tapes. Once received, Graves was even more sure of the value of these now-forgotten debates. He approached the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art about a special screening of the videos, and was accepted. Hoping for at least 100 interested attendees, the show sold out and there was standing room only. Bloggers quickly reported the news that the debates still existed and that the screening had received an eager audience.

In the beginning of the 1980s, shortly after an introduction to the compact disc Graves was fascinated by the digital format and began writing reviews and articles about discs in Digital Audio magazine (which became CD Review), as along with Goldmine magazine and other. In 1987, he established and launched Rock & Roll Disc magazine which was a magazine with a limited circulation that reviews and rated new compact discs. The magazine gained a tiny but loyal following because of the high excellent quality of its critics and writing. Some of the veteran music writers who contributed to the magazine included Dave Marsh, Ed Ward, Rich Kienzle, and Stanley Booth. Many writers began their careers by writing articles in Rock & Roll Disc including Michael Azerrad, John Floyd, Dan Heilman, and Rick Clark.

Tom Graves Net Worth

Tom Graves is one of the richest Writer from United States. According to our analysis, Wikipedia, Forbes & Business Insider, Tom Graves 's net worth $5 Million. (Last Update: December 11, 2023)

The year 1976 was the time that Graves earned a B.A. diploma in journalism from The University of Memphis and received the National Observer Award from the faculty as the Journalism Students of the Year. He was awarded a regional prize in Writing for Feature by The Sigma Delta Chi professional journalism society for a story that he wrote about the princes from the local area named Prince Mongo. After graduating, he worked in various jobs as public relations and advertising writer, while also working as a freelance writer for literary magazines of a small size like Fiction Texas, The Chouteau Review, Southern Exposure, and The New Leader.

Graves was married two times. He was married to Denise Maimone, a fellow student at the University of Memphis, in 1977. They had one daughter named Allison who was born in the year 1982. In 2012, their granddaughter June arrived. Graves and Denise separated in 2000. Graves was married to a citizen from Senegal and the name of Bintou Ndiaye was in 2004. They divorced in 2012.

Following his graduation in 1998 from the University of Memphis with the first M.F.A. degree in Creative Nonfiction in the Creative Writing program, Graves began to teach as an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis and at Mid-South Community College in West Memphis, Arkansas. He accepted an instructorship at a historically black college in Memphis, LeMoyne-Owen College, in 2007 teaching English, Humanities, and Journalism. He received tenure at the college in 2016 and retired from teaching in 2020.

Height, Weight & Body Measurements

Tom Graves height Not available right now. Tom weight Not Known & body measurements will update soon.

Who is Tom Graves Dating?

According to our records, Tom Graves married to Julie Howard Graves (m. 1996). As of December 1, 2023, Tom Graves’s is not dating anyone.

Relationships Record : We have no records of past relationships for Tom Graves. You may help us to build the dating records for Tom Graves!

In another project, Graves adapted 25 of the best-known Aesop’s Fables, updating them for contemporary audiences, and recruited Colin Hay, the former frontman for the Australian rock group Men At Work, to narrate the tales. Hay agreed to voice the audiobook and worked with Graves in a recording studio in Memphis. The result was Aesop’s Fables with Colin Hay, published in audiobook and ebook formats, in 2017.

Facts & Trivia

Tom Ranked on the list of most popular Writer. Also ranked in the elit list of famous people born in United States. Tom Graves celebrates birthday on July 7 of every year.

Graves’ writing in Rock & Roll Disc greatly broadened his readership and he soon began to expand his reach to other prominent publications such as Rolling Stone. and The New York Times, and he enjoyed a long tenure with The Washington Post. He was asked to contribute an article to the Oxford American’s first all-music issue. At the same time, quite by accident, Graves had discovered the first entertainer to perform full-time as an Elvis impersonator, Bill Haney of West Memphis, Arkansas. He found Haney to be a fascinating personality and wrote the article “Natural Born Elvis” which was published in the Oxford American all-music issue. Later the article was anthologized in The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing. Graves is now credited with discovering the first Elvis impersonator.