As Director of Grants, Lauren Rhoades oversees MAC’s grants and programs including working with program staff to promote the agency’s grant opportunities and recruit potential grantees. MAC currently distributes more than $1 million annually in grants to 200 – 300 individual artists and organizations in the state.

Rhoades previously served as director of the Eudora Welty House & Garden, a National Historic Landmark and literary house museum in Jackson. She is also a creative writer whose essays, book reviews, and editorials have been published in the Southwest Review, phoebe, StorySouth, the Mississippi Books Page, Jackson Free Press, and elsewhere. Rhoades has bachelor’s degrees in English, Spanish, and political science from the University of Colorado and an MFA in creative writing from the Mississippi University for Women.