In 2015 Grant Tracey turned to writing crime noir. Before that he had published nearly fifty short stories in small literary magazines and story collections. The sensibilities of Five Hard Bites are in part indebted to the writings of Raymond Chandler, Samuel Fuller, Mickey Spillane, and Jim Thompson. Grant teaches creative writing and film at the University of Northern Iowa and edits the North American Review. In 2013 he received an Iowa Regent's Award for Faculty Excellence. In 2021, he was a recipient of UNI's Graduate College Distinguished Scholar Award. Recent publications include Winsome/Bend of the Sun, a chapbook, "The Key Witness," a short story in Tough, and "Four on the Floor," a forthcoming Hayden Fuller mystery appearing in Groovy Gumshoes.