[2] He co-owns the independent publishing company, The Devault-Graves Agency, and is a tenured Assistant Professor of English at LeMoyne–Owen College in Memphis.
[4] [5] After graduation, he worked as an advertising and public relations writer while also writing as a freelancer for small literary magazines such as Fiction Texas,[6] The Chouteau Review,[7] Southern Exposure,[8] and The New Leader.
He has published articles in several publications, including Rolling Stone,[14] Goldmine (magazine), The New York Times,[15] and The Washington Post,[16][17] among others.
[3] Among many veteran music writers for the magazine were Dave Marsh, Ed Ward, Rich Kienzle, and Stanley Booth.
Although sales were relatively modest, Pullers received good reviews and blurbs from the likes of Harry Crews, Charles Gaines, and Dave Marsh.
[21] 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.
[22][23] Graves' long-time friend, fellow Memphian and writer/filmmaker Robert Gordon, contacted him about viewing the Buckley-Vidal videos.
Gordon also enlisted his frequent filmmaking partner, Morgan Neville, and the three began interviewing subjects for the project.
In 2012 Graves and his friend Darrin Devault, at the time a professor of Journalism at the University of Memphis, formed a partnership as an independent publishing company, The Devault-Graves Agency.
[26] They wanted to explore the emerging market for ebooks but soon became equally interested in publishing print books and audiobooks.
The Devault-Graves Agency brought suit against the Salinger Trust for what they termed as interference with their foreign marketing of the book.
[30][31][32][33][34] The agency dropped the lawsuit when they felt that the Salinger Trust would no longer interfere with the book's marketing in those countries where the copyright of Three Early Stories was upheld.
In 2015, Graves published an anthology of his best articles and interviews, Louise Brooks, Frank Zappa, & Other Charmers & Dreamers.
[38] 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.