JACKSON, MISS. – Nadia Alexis of McComb, Mississippi has been awarded a $500 mini-grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission. This grant is a portion of the more than $1.75 million in grants MAC awarded in Fiscal Year 2024 and will be used to cover some of the costs to attend the 2024 Kweli Color of Children’s Literature Conference in New York City. The conference is designed to help emerging writers hone their craft, introduce them to established authors willing to share their experiences and expertise, and connect them with editors, agents and publishers who can introduce their art to the world.
“With the additional funds provided to MAC this fiscal year, we are able to fund 37 more grants that are providing an economic impact for Mississippi communities, the arts, and education throughout the state,” said David Lewis, executive director for the Mississippi Arts Commission. “We are grateful for the support from the Mississippi Legislature and elected officials who helped prioritize the arts in Mississippi.”
Dr. Nadia Alexis is a poet, writer, photographer, and educator born and raised in Harlem, New York City. Her debut full-length collection of poems and photographs, Watersheds, will be published by CavanKerry Press in Spring 2025. Her writing has appeared in Poets & Writers, The Global South, Indiana Review, and Shenandoah, among others. She has also contributed to anthologies like Wild Imperfections: An Anthology of Womanist Poems. Nadia has received several awards and honors for her work, including the 2019 honorable mention poetry prize from the Hurston/Wright College Writers Award and a 2020 semifinalist position in the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest. Nadia is a fellow of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and The Watering Hole. She holds a PhD in English with a Creative Writing Concentration from the University of Mississippi, where she also earned an MFA in Creative Writing with a focus on Poetry. She is currently the Literary Arts Instructor and Department Head at the Mississippi School of the Arts.
MAC’s annual grant funds come from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mississippi State Legislature. Awards were made in 104 Mississippi House of Representatives districts and 60 state Senate districts.
The Mississippi Arts Commission is a state agency serving more than two million people through grants and special initiatives that enhance communities, assist artists and arts organizations, promote arts education, and celebrate Mississippi’s cultural heritage. MAC is funded by the Mississippi Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mississippi Endowment for the Arts at the Community Foundation for Mississippi, and other private sources. For more information, visit www.arts.ms.gov.
For information about the Mississippi Arts Commission, please contact Ellie Banks, Communications Director, 601-359-6546 or ebanks@arts.ms.gov.
