Dr. Nadia Alexis of McComb, Mississippi has been awarded a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission. This grant is a portion of the more than $1.7 million in grants MAC awarded in Fiscal Year 2025 and will support Dr. Alexis’s participation in The Watering Hole Poetry Retreat, held in winter 2025. The Watering Hole, the only writing retreat of its kind in the U.S. South specifically for poets of color, offers fifty to sixty poets five immersive days of workshops, study, creative generation, and community under the mentorship of award-winning faculty. Fellows gather in intimate workshop cohorts of 10–14 poets for lectures, discussions, analysis, reading assignments, and craft lessons designed to help them learn craft and generate new work. Upon completing the third retreat, participants earn the distinction of Graduate Fellow.
Dr. Nadia Alexis is a poet, writer, and photographer born in Harlem. She is the debut author of Beyond the Watershed (CavanKerry Press, 2025), a hybrid poetry and photography collection longlisted for the 2025 Maya Angelou Book Award. Her writing and photography appear widely in journals and anthologies, and she has received numerous honors including a 2025 Literary Arts Fellowship and a 2024 Artist Mini-Grant from MAC, the 2024 Mississippi STAR Teacher Award, recognition as the 2023 Poet of the Year Honoree of the Haitian Creatives Digital Awards, semifinalist distinction in the 2020 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, and an honorable mention in the 2019 Hurston/Wright College Writers Award. A fellow of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, The Watering Hole, and the Poets & Writers Get the Word Out Publicity Incubator, she was also recently a featured presenter in the University of Southern Mississippi’s Visiting Writers Series. She holds a PhD and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Mississippi. She currently serves as the Literary Arts Instructor and Department Head at the Mississippi School of the Arts.
“I’m grateful to receive support from the Mississippi Arts Commission to attend my third and final Watering Hole retreat,” said Alexis. “TWH has been instrumental in my development as an emerging poet living in the South. It has given me community, mentorship, and a creative home where I can grow my craft and build lasting relationships with poets who are committed to poetry and good literary citizenship.”
“Mississippi is a vibrant hub of artistic talent that enriches lives and fuels local economies throughout our state,” said David Lewis, executive director for the Mississippi Arts Commission. “With the generous support from the Mississippi Legislature, we can leverage our citizens’ creativity to invest in our communities.” MAC’s annual grant funds come from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mississippi State Legislature.