Maddy Clifford is a writer, musician, and arts leader with deep roots in Oakland. For over a decade, she worked as a teaching artist across the West Coast. This allowed her to share her curriculum on college campuses, in community centers, and even inside youth detention facilities. She believes in the power of creative writing, performance, and other artistic disciplines to boost emotional intelligence and literacy rates—two essentials for building an equitable society.

Maddy previously served as Cultural Strategist in Government for the City of Oakland and was part of Intersection for the Arts’ THRIVE cohort of BIPOC arts leaders. As an arts-worker, she’s done everything from composing the score for Flyaway Productions’ aerial dance piece Apparatus of Repair, to producing a hip-hop album about climate change (downCHANTS), to helping launch a Black feminist podcast called What’s Pimpin’? Maddy’s writing has appeared in KQED Arts, Hammer & Hope, and Teen Vogue. She’s been featured on Last Week Tonight and collaborated with More Perfect Union.

Lately, Maddy has been delving into new media and narrative strategy—amplifying points of interconnectedness between the work of artists and social justice organizers.