Biography

Since 1990, I have advised artists, writers, and creatively driven businesses, public agencies, foundations and international donor organizations.

In addition to prominent artists, writers, actors, musicians and directors, my clients have included: From the Top, GrantCraft, The Actor’s Shakespeare Project, Opera Boston, The Ariel Group, XVIVO, Rialto Arts, Philistine Records, the Social Innovation Forum, Theater Offensive,the World Bank, the Ford, Rockefeller, Ewing Marion Kauffman and James Irvine Foundations, the Carnegie Corporation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and Chelsea Pictures. I have also advised the George H.W. Bush and Clinton Administrations on fostering innovation in the public sector.

Creative Life

I believe passionately that anyone working with artists ought to have some skin in the game, so I work hard at my art. I’m a sometime playwright and a working poet. My play, “Mum and Shah,” was a Boston Globe “Pick of the Week.” I was 2010 poet in Residence at Bascom Lodge, a 2004 writer-in-residence at Mesa Refuge, Point Reyes, California, and I enjoyed a fine run from 2010-2013 as Narragansett Beer’s first Poet Laureate.

As a spoken word artist, with a penchant for immersive theatre, I perform periodically with the New York Poetry Brothel under the nom de plum, Bellocq C. Obscura. My first spoken word album, Night Work, was released in 2007 by Philistine Records, and my book of erotic senryu, Pillow Talk, appeared in 2008 (G.Spot Press). My second album, “Marker and Parker,”performed and recorded with legendary jazz pianist Don Parker (2010), is featured on Tiny Mind Records. My latest collection of poems, The Underwater Typewriter, will be released in September 2015 by Pelekinesis Press.

My poems have most recently appeared in Wick, Lyrical, and Ibbetson Street. My poetry website is MarcZegans.com.

Public Service

In 1986 and 1987 I managed the City of Boston’s goals program, integrating strategic planning with the city’s first program-based budgets. Between 1988 and 1995, I directed the Innovations in American Government Program, a joint venture of the Ford Foundation and Harvard University. I was a 2005 Fellow at Harvard University’s Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

Schooling and Education

Mark Twain famously said, “I mustn’t let my schooling interfere with my education,” and my life’s work with creative people has truly been my best education. For those of you interested in the formalities, I graduated from Haverford College, a fine Quaker school outside of Philadelphia, earned my Master’s in Public Policy at Harvard, and went to San Francisco University High School.

Personal

I have a teenage son who raps, makes videos, break-dances and plays electric guitar. I live in Santa Cruz California, and you can find me most evenings on the bluffs enjoying our gorgeous sunsets.