Darlene Taylor

Darlene Taylor, Edna Payne Clarke Fellow

Darlene R. Taylor has had a long career as a senior aide to the U.S. Congress and an advisor to arts, cultural and development nonprofits, and Fortune 100 corporations. She has served as president of Preservation Action, a nonprofit grassroots voice of local and state historic preservationists. Darlene is Chair of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, a 24-year-old nonprofit dedicated to preserving the voice of Black writers. As a writer and preservationist, she aims to protect and share the stories of American life and history through its people, buildings, landscapes, and literary art. The literary journal Blackberry: a magazine published her short story fiction, and she is a 2014 fellow of Callaloo in fiction. A graduate of American University, she has lived in Cairo, Geneva, and New York. Currently, she resides in Washington, DC and lovingly cares for an 1860 waterman’s house on the historic eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Edna Payne Clark Fellow