Abdul Ali—poet, writer, educator, and cultural worker – is program coordinator at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) of a major grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder in arts and culture, and humanities in higher education. Mr. Ali has held distinguished teaching appointments at Johns Hopkins University, Howard University, and Goucher College. He is the recipient of the 2019 Ruby Grant, from the Robert Deutsch Foundation. His debut collection of poems, Trouble Sleeping, won the 2014 New Issues Poetry Book Prize. When Mr. Ali isn’t teaching writing, he is a volunteer leader with the Baltimore-based organization, THREAD, which serves academically challenged young people in the Baltimore City Public Schools. Over the past decade, he has held senior management positions at numerous literary nonprofit institutions spanning program management, communications, development, to chairing the Board of Directors of the Hurston/Wright foundation. On a part-time basis, he works with community-based arts nonprofits through his nonprofit management consultancy.