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 founded by West Africans who had escaped from slavery in Cartagena. Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry 2015 (Simon & Schuster, 2015), among other publications.
