Poet, James McGrath, offers "Selected Poems of James McGrath" as his ninth book with Sunstone Press of Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was Art Teacher as well as Arts and Humanities Coordinator for the US Department of Defense Overseas Schools in Germany, France, Italy and Ethiopia from 1955 to 1962. James held the same Arts and Humanities position with the DOD Overseas Schools in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Okinawa and Midway Island from 1973 to 1985, when he retired the first time. During his tenure in the DOD Overseas Schools in the Far East, James inaugurated and edited "SUN, the Journal of Self Expression" for those schools. From 1962 to 1973, James was Creative Writing, Painting, Exhibition-Museum Arts teacher as well as Assistant Arts Director and Arts Director at the Santa Fe, New Mexico seminal Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). He was Dean of the College at IAIA from 1988 to 1990. In 2010, IAIA awarded James their Visionary Award. James was designated a Santa Fe Living Treasure in 2008.

The New Mexico Literary Arts presented James their Gratitude Award in 2014 for his "Contributions to the Literary Life of New Mexico." In 2015, the University of Baltimore's "passager's" editors, Mary Azrael and Kendra Kopelke, awarded him their 2015 Poet Award. James was United States Information Service, Arts America, Poet/Artist in Residence in Yemen, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Republic of Congo in the 1990s. A biography of James, "James McGrath: In a Class By Himself," by Jonah Raskin was published in 2012.