Dr. Brenda M. Greene

Dr. Brenda M. Greene, who has committed her life to teaching, learning, scholarship, and literary activism is professor emeritus and founder and executive director emeritus of the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York. Professor Greene’s research and scholarship include African American literature, composition, and multicultural literature. She is editor of The African Presence and Influence on the Cultures of the Americas and co-editor of Resistance and Transformation: Conversations with Black Writers; Meditations and Ascensions: Black Writers on Writing;  Redefining Ourselves, Black Writers in the Nineties; and Rethinking American Literature. She has also written extensive essays, grants, and book reviews and served as a featured speaker and presenter at forums in African American literature and English Studies.

Dr. Greene’s educational leadership and professional accomplishments span more than 50 years. She is the visionary behind groundbreaking public and academic programs that support Black Writers. Most notably through the Center for Black Literature, Dr. Greene has consistently pursued her passion of expanding, broadening, and enriching the public’s knowledge and aesthetic appreciation of the value of the literature produced by Black writers and worked to seek support for nurturing and cultivating the critical reading and writing habits of a cross-generation of readers and writers through programming that includes the National Black Writers Conference, the Killens Reading Series, the Wild Seeds Writers Retreat, and the Re-Envisioning Our Lives through Literature program. She is also the book review editor for Our Time Press, a local newspaper that features community and global news from the African American perspective and host of the long-running weekly program, Writers on Writing, heard on New York airwaves (WNYE, 91.5 FM) and globally online.  The program features writers of the African Diaspora discussing their lives, their creative process, and their work (novels, poems, plays, nonfiction, and more).

Dr. Greene has been honored with many awards including the American Book Award for her work in literary criticism, the Visionary Leadership Award for Literacy, Diversity, and Democracy from the National Association of University Women (Brooklyn Branch), the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent; the Lucille Rose Living Legend Award from the Brooklyn Chapter of the NAACP; the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Award from the Brooklyn United Scholarship Association; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Brooklyn Oldtimers Foundation; the Lynnette Velasco Community Impact Award sponsored by the Harlem Arts Festival; the Educational Leadership Award sponsored by the MEC Community Council; the City College Women in Arts and Culture Award; the Phenomenal Women in the Media Award sponsored by Our Time Press; the Betty Smith Arts Award from the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office; and the National Conference of Artists Award for Excellence in the Promotion of Black Literature.