Lorelei Williams, writer and entrepreneur

For over fifteen years, Lorelei Williams has worked to empower African and Afro-descendent communities across the globe to achieve equity and justice.  Currently, as a philanthropic strategist, she advises foundations and non-profit organizations on program design and organizational development. Clients have included the Ford Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Brazil Foundation, Seasons Fund and The Brazilian Institute for Ethnic Media, among others.  Lorelei has served as Co-Chair of the Civil Society Committee for the US State Department’s US-Brazil Joint Action Plan to End Racial Discrimination.  As a Fulbright fellow in Brazil, she founded the POMPA project in partnership with the Steve Biko Institute to train Afro-Brazilian youth for public service careers.
    
Writing has always been Lorelei's first love.  Her work has been recognized through fellowships from the Breadloaf Young Writer’s Conference, Cave Canem and the New York Foundation for the Arts.  She has performed at the Joe Papp Public Theater, Manenberg Jazz House in South Africa, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Nuyorican Poet’s Café, the Poet’s House, and other locations.  Her senior thesis at Yale, Black Women in the Television Landscape, was awarded the William Pickens Prize.  Lorelei's writings have appeared in Essence Magazine, Meridians Journal on Feminism, Race and Transnationalism, and African Voices - and in the anthologies Be the Dream (Algonquin Books); Beyond the Frontier: African-American Poetry for the 21st Century (Black Classic Press); Cave Canem III (Black Classic Press); Daddy Can I Tell You Something (Sela Press); and Guerreras y Cimmaronas (University of Houston Arte Publico Press).   

Lorelei earned a B.A. from Yale University in Political Science/African American Studies and a Masters Degree in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.  To contact her click here.

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