Arts Directory

About

Artist Bio

Candace​ Wiley​ was born in S.C., graduated with her B.A. from Bowie State University, an H.B.C.U. in M.D., her M.A. from Clemson University, and her M.F.A. at the University of South Carolina. She is co-founding director of The Watering Hole, a nonprofit that creates Harlem Renaissance-style spaces in the contemporary South, and she writes about childhood, home, and love, and she also writes in the mode of Afrofuturism, covering topics from black aliens, to mutants, to mermaids. She is a Vermont Studio Center Fellow, Lighthouse Works Center Fellow, Fine Arts Work Center Fellow, Callaloo Fellow and former Fulbright Fellow to San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia, a town that was founded by West Africans who had escaped from Cartagena slavery. (The people have their own language and customs that trace back to the Bantu and Kikongo in West Africa.) Her work has been featured in Best American Poetry 2015, Prairie Schooner, The Texas Review, and Jasper Magazine, among others. She recently left a teaching position at Clemson University to build a real estate portfolio. More information can be found at www.candacegwiley.com.

Artist Statement

My creative practice is rooted in the belief that writing (poetry, fiction, and nonfiction) can serve as both a vessel for historical excavation and a portal for radical reimagination. As a writer, educator, and arts organizer, I craft verse that blurs the boundary between document and dream, allowing voices to speak across space, language, and time. Much of my work centers on personal and ancestral memory and the sacred intersections between myth, history, and the body. My work touches realms of realism, magical realism, and Afro-Futurism, imagining mermaids, mutants, and aliens in our historical records.

My artistic practice expands beyond the page. I curate immersive workshops that invite participants to translate various “languages”—math, architecture, road signs, colonial archives—into poetic form. These experiments stretch the imagination and democratize poetic access, encouraging high school and adult learners alike to see poetry not as a genre, but as a language of its own. Similarly, I curate archival writing experiences using site-specific writing and historical texts to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and collective witnessing. Workshop participants unpack the text and subtext of archival materials, write into the silences and gaps, and leave with a new perspective of a historical moment.

Ultimately, my work is a practice of remembering and making. I am committed to building literary ecosystems where personal, familial, and cultural histories, especially those submerged by time or intent, are not just recovered but re-enchanted. Whether through verse, workshop, or leading The Watering Hole Poetry Org., I strive to create rituals of language that honor the past, hold the present accountable, and open room for imagination across time.