Terri McCord is a visual artist as well as a poet. The South Carolina Arts Commission awarded her the literary fellowship in poetry (out of state panel for jurors) for 2001-2002. She received a 2020 Pushcart nomination, and Finishing Line Press published her third volume of poetry - The Beauts! Other awards include finalist standing in the Press 53 Open Awards, as well as finalist in Pocataligo Poetry Prize from Yemassee Review, finalist in Southeast Review, Fall Lines, Cream City Review, South Carolina Review, and she has received three other Pushcart nominations. She was also a finalist for the McCray Nickens Poetry Fellowship in 2022. McCord received an Honorable Mention in the 2023 Porter Fleming Literary Competition sponsored by the Morris Museum of Art. McCord has read for the State Book Festival, Sundown Poetry Series at the Spoleto Festival, Richland County Library Fall Lines, the Poetry Society of South Carolina, Greenville County Library, Furman University, Converse, Presbyterian College, Queens University in Charlotte, Emrys and bookstores and journals. She has received two nominations for Best of the Net, including 2025.

McCord has also judged writing for the Raleigh Fine Arts Society for a number of years, other groups and has taught and created arts and cross-curricular residencies through the South Carolina Arts Commission and various other venues. She has also taught at Clemson University and Anderson University. She earned an M.F.A. from Queens University in Charlotte in 2006. McCord has worked with students at arts centers and through the South Carolina Approved Artists roster throughout the state.

She had the pleasure of writing an ekphrastic poem in response to a photograph in a collaborative project with the Film Shooters Collective: revela't, an international exhibition in 2021. She has been a reader/judge for various journals.