Ford will discuss cruising the Inside Passage as an African American mariner for the past 35 years. Using a Google Earth 3D presentation, he will show the routes he has taken, the hazards he has faced, and the beauty of nature he has encountered. Ford will also briefly discuss the unique history of Black mariners, who, in the nineteenth century, were known as “Black Jacks.”
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Clyde W. Ford was born in NYC. He's the author of fifteen works of fiction and non-fiction. He's also a chiropractor, a psychotherapist, an accomplished mythologist, and a sought-after public speaker. In 2006, Ford received the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award in African American fiction. In 2019, he was named a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Award in African American nonfiction. In 2021, Clyde received the prestigious Washington Center for the Book award for Think Black, his memoir about his father, the first Black software engineer in America. Clyde was honored as a "Literary Lion" by the King County Library System in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2019. He was voted "Best Writer of Bellingham, Washington" in 2006 and 2007 by readers of the Cascadia Weekly and he received the 2007 Bellingham, Washington Mayor's Arts Award in Literature. Ford is currently the Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Publishing Project at HarperCollins Publishers.
Ford is also an experienced writer of nautical fiction and non-fiction. Books in his Charlie Noble nautical mystery series were published by Vanguard Press (Precious Cargo, 2008. Whiskey Gulf, 2009). His book on environmental boating, Green Boating: 50 Steps Boaters Can Take to Save Our Waters (New Society, 2008) was endorsed by Pete Seeger and won the 2008 Environmental Leadership Award from the BoatUS Foundation. He has written numerous articles about boating and the psychology of boating for PassageMaker Magazine, and has taught classes on navigation, seamanship, and environmental stewardship at nearly every major boat show in the United States and Canada. Articles about Ford as a boater have appeared in the Seattle Times, PassageMaker Magazine, Pacific Northwest Yachting Magazine, and numerous other boating periodicals. He has led on-the-water writing workshops for Northwest Explorations, a boat charter company based out of Bellingham, Washington, and has given unique on-the-water readings in conjunction with Village Books of Bellingham, Washington, where guests aboard a San Juan cruise line’s whale-watching boat were treated to dinner while Ford read from his books in the actual locations where they were set.
Clyde has participated in hundreds of media interviews and has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, New Dimensions Radio, and National Public Radio. He lives in Bellingham, Washington where he enjoys walking in the mountains and cruising the waters of the Pacific Northwest.