Board of Directors

Jacqueline Woodson

Founder, President

Jacqueline Woodson is a writer whose accolades include a MacArthur “Genius” Award, the National Book Award, The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, The Hans Christian Andersen Medal and NAACP Award among many others. She was inspired to create Baldwin For The Arts after spending time at Macdowell, Hedgebrook, and The Fine Arts Workcenter and witnessing firsthand the impact of these residencies.

Glory Edim

Secretary

Glory Edim is the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, a Brooklyn-based book club and online community that celebrates the uniqueness of Black literature and sisterhood. In fall 2017, she organized the first-ever Well-Read Black Girl Literary Festival.

Reuben Walker

Treasurer

Reuben Walker is the Director of Research at Columbia Law School where he provides donor prospect research and assists in the development of comprehensive fundraising strategies. His over 20 years of experience in non-profit management ranges from work with large academic institutions to smaller community-based organizations serving People of Color LGBTQI and HIV/AIDS communities. His devotion to the arts began at UC Berkeley, where he studied African diasporic cultural literacy.

Linda Villarosa

Linda Villarosa runs the journalism program at The City College of New York when she’s not fishing the lakes and reservoirs of New York or kicking butt at soccer in Prospect Park. Currently a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, Linda is also the chair of the board of the Feminist Press and author or co-author of several books. She is currently writing “Under the Skin: Race, Inequality and the Health of a Nation,” to be published by Doubleday.

Catherine Gund

Catherine Gund, Founder-Director of Aubin Pictures, is an Emmy-nominated producer, director, writer, and activist. Her media work focuses on strategic and sustainable social transformation, arts and culture, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health, and the environment.

Gund currently serves on several other boards including Art For Justice, Art Matters, and The George Gund Foundation.

Katy Nishimoto

Katy Nishimoto is a Senior Editor at The Dial Press, an imprint of Random House. Before joining Dial as their first-ever editor to focus specifically on lgbtq+ writers, she spent ten years at the global talent agency William Morris Endeavor in their Literary Division. Katy lives in Los Angeles with her partner and their tiny dog.

Toshi Reagon

Toshi Reagon is a talented, versatile singer, composer, musician, curator and producer. While her expansive career has landed her comfortably in residence at Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House & Madison Square Garden, you can just as easily find Toshi turning out a music festival, intimate venue or local club. Toshi knows the power of song to focus, unite and mobilize people. Her latest theatrical work is the opera Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower. She is a 2015 Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow, a 2018 United States Artist Fellow.

Merele Williams Adkins

Merele Williams Adkins is a lapsed lawyer who now represents the Estate of Terry R. Adkins, an artist and musician. She has been instrumental in preserving his legacy in the canon of art history, with numerous books published and exhibitions staged, including a recent one at the Putlizer Arts Foundation. Merele could be described as an “arts activist” and currently serves on two boards, the Laundromat Project and the Hood Museum of Art.

Lydia Polgreen

Lydia Polgreen is an award winning journalist and media executive who is currently Managing Director of Gimlet, a podcast studio at Spotify. Prior to that, Polgreen served as editor in chief of HuffPost following a 15 year career at the New York Times that included roles as an editor, South Africa bureau chief, a correspondent for the New Delhi bureau and chief of the West Africa bureau. Polgreen was a 2006 recipient of the George Polk Award for foreign reporting and the 2008 Livingston Award for international reporting.

Kaija Langley

Kaija Langley is a writer and fundraiser for non-profit organizations with a global reach. Currently she is the author of When Langston Dances, her debut picture book about a little Black boy’s first day of ballet by Denene Millner Books/Simon and Schuster Young Readers imprint. She is also on the board of the Cambridge Public Library.