GLOBAL INSPIRATION DELLIS IS EDUCATION ADVOCATE

By Jenna Hanley

From growing up and attending college in Milledgeville, Georgia, to marriage and resume building in Sydney, Australia, to growth and prosperity in Huntsville, Alabama, Grace Dellis has traveled nontraditional life and career paths.

“They tell you when you graduate college that you can do whatever you want to do, but I never felt like that until now, a decade later. To see myself now as someone who’s confident in her ability to do things and her ability to help other people – it has been really amazing to see myself go through that transformation.”

Dellis took a piece of advice after graduating from Georgia College & State University in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in rhetoric to attend graduate school because she wasn’t sure what life path she wanted to pursue. When graduate school didn’t work out, the next piece of advice she took, she said, changed her life.

“My first job after graduating from GC was at TJ Maxx. I had moved back in with my parents, and a friend of mine randomly told me I should consider moving to Australia. I did some research, received a working holiday visa, flew across the globe and became a live-in nanny. After six weeks of living there, I met this guy; we got married; and I stayed there for nine years.”

When Dellis moved to Australia, she completed a yearlong internship with International Justice Mission; yet, she had no idea what would come next.

“If you had told me when I graduated college that I would have done this job, I would have said there is no way I am capable, qualified or brave enough for that kind of work,” said Dellis earlier this spring via a phone interview. “This job was very intense but rewarding. It was nice for me to be able to learn about the indigenous culture, their history and the way the country operates.”

The Milledgeville native said she worked for Wesley Mission overseeing and reporting on a team of people who were building community groups in areas of Australia where people are at higher risk of suicide.

Dellis said she has always felt called to help and be involved in her community. She was involved in a youth group in high school, which she said played a major part in why she chose to attend GCSU. Her youth group leader was a rhetoric major at GC and recommended she meet with Professor Scott Dillard.

“We talked about different areas of the discipline. He told me rhetoric gives you a great foundation for other disciples and for further academia,” remembered Dellis. “Since I wanted to be in a sector that doesn't require a specific degree, it felt like a good place to start.”

Dellis’ parents didn't pressure her to go to GCSU — despite it being in their backyard. Even though she lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, until age seven, she said, “Milledgeville is what I think of when I think of home and childhood.”

She said she chose GCSU due to her excitement about the rhetoric program and the fact that she was familiar with the campus because her father, Richard Greene, was a music professor at the school at the time.

Dellis is an advocate for education. While working in Australia, she consistently wrote and submitted to small journals, which provided her with industry insight into the gaps in arts and literary publications. This insight was particularly useful when Dellis relocated to Huntsville, Alabama, with her husband, Stephen, and their two boys, Teddy and Louie.

Dellis was quick to point out that Teddy is named after Mark Vail, a rhetoric professor at GCSU while she was a student.

“He passed away from cancer in 2015. Our eldest son’s full name is Theodore Mark, in honor of the impact Dr. Vail had on my life,” said Dellis.

In July 2022, Dellis set out to start a publication about how to use art to cope with religious trauma and deconstruction. She is now running an online arts and literary magazine called “Hyssop + Laurel.” She recently published her first book: “Signs and Wonders: A poetic journey through religious deconstruction.” She is also serving on the board of a spoken word community in Huntsville, a vibrant community of creatives and artists.

Dellis also is currently working on a poetry manuscript, which she said she hopes to publish a collection in the next year. She said her life path continues to evolve and she is considering going back to school to get a Master of Fine Arts degree as well as plans to put her magazine out into the print space.

“I am creating projects that give back to the community I am a part of. I know what it feels like to be chronically misunderstood. So, to build a place where there is safety to express that and appreciation of the creativity that comes from that is powerful,” Dellis said. “I have had a nontraditional journey, but I now have enough professional and life experience to do exactly what I want to do.”

“To see myself now as someone who’s confident in her ability to do things and her ability to help other people – it has been really amazing to see myself go through that transformation.”

- Grace Dellis