A Mississippi native, Kristen Brandt returned to her home state after earning a master’s degree in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University and a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Mississippi College. Before joining MAC full-time, Kristen served as a graduate teaching assistant, contributed to the 2017 Ethnographic Survey of Mammoth Cave National Park, partnered with South Arts to plan the Folklorists in the South conference, and conducted archival work to establish the Mississippi Folk Arts Archive.

At MAC, she has overseen major initiatives including the rollout of 2020–2021 emergency grant funding supported by the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan; the production and installation of historical markers for the Mississippi Writers Trail; and quarterly professional development workshops for arts professionals. She also managed the Building Fund for the Arts Program, an arts infrastructure grant for facilities that provide year round arts programming for Mississippi communities.

Contact me for guidance and assistance with your application in eGRANT if you are a writer (fiction/nonfiction, poet, playwright, screenwriter, etc.), you are a folk artist working within a traditional visual or performing arts genre, or if you are an organization whose primary focus is traditional arts and culture such as a blues or craft festival, traditional arts and culture museum, or organizations which focus on the documentation, education, or training in traditional art forms.