NABWIC Talks Radio - Clyde McElvene

Clyde E. McElvene is a native Washingtonian, a product of DC public schools and a bibliophile for life. McElvene was formally trained at Virginia State University in Fine Arts Education. He is a cultural historian/lecturer who has taught African history and culture at the University of Virginia Saturday Academy, the Lorton Reformatory, City as School in New York, Bell Multicultural High School, Goding Elementary, and Amidon Elementary School in Washington DC. McElvene helped to establish and direct 17 African Centered Study Groups in the Metropolitan Washington area. He is the past financial secretary, director of marketing and co-founder of the African American Writers Guild in Washington, DC. He currently conducts African-Centered Field Trips of Washington DC, and rites of passage manhood training programs for African-American males. 

In 1990, McElvene co-founded the Hurston/Wright Foundation where he serves today as Executive Director and CEO. As the Executive Director/CEO McElvene has full responsibility for day-to-day operations of this non-profit literary arts/education institution.The Hurston/Wright Foundation develops programs that preserve cultural memory and honors the Black experience through literature. The programs of Hurston/Wright include annual weeklong creative writing workshops; Saturday creative writing classes for teens that run during the entire academic school year; the first national award presented to Black published authors by their peers; and the only award in the nation presented to Black college writers for excellence in previously unpublished works. In as much as a book/literature has little value without a reader, Hurston/Wright has also developed Project Read: An Active Literacy Program that teaches children to become proficient or advanced for their grades in language arts including reading, writing, critical thinking, and public speaking.