Experimental Art and Writing (The Spiritual Quest)

Christy Sheffield Sanford is a pioneering artist and poet from the American South who specializes in born-digital writing and design. She holds an interest in “new forms, in interarts and odd combinations of genres” (“About”). During her career she has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and NEA Rockefeller. She was the first Writer-in-Residence at the trAce Online Writing Centre located in Nottingham, England and has collaborated with other important writers, including Reiner Strasser and M. D. Coverley, both also collected here in The NEXT. Along with over 40 works of born-digital poetry and fiction published in frAme, Snakeskin Poetry Webzine, Oyster Boy Review, TO: A Journal of Poetry, Prose, and Visual Arts, Grist, The Little Magazine, YLEM, and Riding the Meridian, she has produced 16 books of poetry, some of which are highly collectible artists books. She notes French poet Stéphane Mallarmé as one of her main artistic influences.

Sanford transferred the archives of "Red Mona" in the summer of 2019. After the reconstruction of the works, she began to transfer the rest of her archives to The NEXT in the fall 2024 to establish her collection.