Michelle Laflamme-Childs

As executive director of New Mexico Arts—the state arts agency—Michelle LaFlamme-Childs works to develop creative ideas to strengthen, evolve, and diversify programs at the agency while forging new partnerships to address the changing needs of artists and arts organizations across New Mexico. With her eye toward better serving rural and other historically underserved and excluded communities, LaFlamme-Childs and the New Mexico Arts team are exploring innovative ways to better address issues of access and equity in their grantmaking, public art programming, and field capacity-building efforts. An arts administrator for almost 20 years in both the private and public sector, LaFlamme-Childs also pursues her own creative practice as a poet, with one published chapbook and a book-length manuscript in the works and can be found spinning fresh beats as a radio DJ on local radio station 98.1 Radio Free Santa Fe. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Massachusetts, a master’s degree from St. John's College in Santa Fe, and hopes someday to complete her MFA in creative writing at the University of Texas, El Paso.