Candace G. Wiley

Candace G. Wiley is a poet, professor, and one of the founding directors of the Watering Hole, a nonprofit that creates Harlem Renaissance-style spaces in the contemporary South. 

She was born in South Carolina and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Bowie State University, a Master of Arts from Clemson University, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of South Carolina.

Wiley 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 slavery in Cartagena. 

Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry 2015 (Simon and Schuster, 2015), among other publications. A former professor at Clemson University, Wiley now is a Tulsa Artist Fellow and helps direct the Watering Hole from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she lives.