Leilani Clark

Leilani Clark (she/her) joined LandPaths in August 2018 after discovering the organization through Bayer Farm. As Communications Lead, Leilani manages LandPaths’ website and social media, writes e-newsletters, blog posts, and press releases, facilitates the Communications Team, and builds the overall communications strategy and vision. 

The daughter of a grocery store worker and a house painter, Leilani was the first in her family to graduate from college. Leilani has an M.F.A. in Writing and Consciousness from California Institute of Integral Studies, an M.A. in Secondary Education from Western New Mexico University, and a B.A. in Literature from University of California San Diego.

Leilani spent her childhood in Hawaii and Los Angeles and lived in San Diego and then New Mexico, before moving north. She began her career (after years of playing guitar in bands and working in cafes) as a public high school teacher, teaching in the Navajo Nation, San Diego, and East Oakland. 

After that, she became a staff writer at the North Bay Bohemian, and then the editor of Made Local Magazine. She was a 2014 California Endowment Health Reporting Fellow at USC Annenberg School for Journalism. Her journalism and essays have appeared at The Guardian,The Press Democrat, Mother Jones, Civil Eats, and other publications. Leilani received a 2019 Discovered Award for Emerging Literary artists from Creative Sonoma. 

Leilani lives in Santa Rosa and enjoys bicycling, gardening, ice cream, reading, dance parties, Alice Coltrane, and camping with her family. She is the proud mom of a fourth grader at Cesar Chavez Language Academy, a dual Spanish/English immersion school in Roseland.