A creative writer and a visual artist, Kris Neely served as writer-in-residence and editor for Hidden Voices, a community-based art project sponsored by the Hub City Writers Project, the Spartanburg Arts Partnership, and Piedmont Care, Inc. The result of his residency, Hidden Voices: Reflections from an Affected Community, was published in October of 2005. This project celebrated the tenth anniversary of the work of Piedmont Care with the HIV+/AIDS epidemic.

The Director of the Wofford College Success Initiative, Neely works with scholarship students on real-life, problem-solving projects with businesses, non-profits, and governmental organizations. He holds a B.A. in religion from Wofford (2002), where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Presidential International Scholar, and recipient of the Walter E. Hudgins Award for Intellectual Courage, Creativity, and Vision.

He is currently pursuing an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art at Goddard College with an emphasis on community-based art. In his studio, Neely experiments with mixed media and found objects to create visual art. His oversize photographs of a Spartanburg water tower are on permanent display at the Spartanburg County Administration Building. Neely’s work has been represented by both local and regional galleries, with solo exhibitions at both Wofford College and Spartanburg High School in 2006. Neely writes daily, the key to generating a catalog of unfinished manuscripts that include plays, poems, short stories, and the first one-hundred pages of a not-so-great American novel. Neely’s documentary film about the life of a Confederate flag supporter, “The Street Corner General”, was featured at the Showroom in 2006.

He and his wife, Patrice, have made their home in Spartanburg. They intend to stay.