Grant is a first-generation college student from Benton, Arkansas. He completed his PhD at the University of Arkansas in 2010 and has taught composition and literature courses for many years. He has published scholarship on Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway and M. Scott Momaday, William Faulkner, and Edgar Allan Poe. Grant joined the faculty at Colorado State in fall of 2018 and teaches composition and literature. Since 2020 he has served as a First Year Composition specialist and works with other specialists to design and revise the CO 150 common curriculum and to mentor and support Graduate Teaching Assistants. He lives in Fort Collins.