biography

Mel Dyer is an American freelance technical writer, information systems specialist and cartoonist.

Born in Washington, D.C., Mel grew up in a hard-working, middleclass, Catholic family. His mother, Shirley Anne (Poindexter) Dyer, is a retired Howard University administrator of thirty-six years and is of Cameroonian, Syro-Lebanese and British descent. His late father, Lewis Edgar Dyer, who was a successful security entrepreneur and one-time boxing champion, was Mexican Mestizo and Scots-Irish. Of the three successful, small businesses that his parents privately operated for nearly twenty years, while holding down full-time jobs - a print shop, a security agency and a non-profit organization - he worked in all three, right through college.

Both survived upbringings in the racially segregated American South, and he is very proud of that heritage. They named him 'Miraculous', for the Miraculous Infant Saint Jesus, ..and 'Mel' is a first grade teacher's nickname for him.

Mel Dyer's communications career began in 1997, when he joined Leadership Directories Inc., as Assistant Editor of the Federal Regional Yellow Book, a comprehensive directory of federal agencies. Between 1999 and 2008, he published an online magazine (The Manhattan Journal) for comic fans, served as Communications Manager for the Center for Disability and Socioeconomic Policy Studies and worked independently, as a freelance web developer. In 2008, having assembled an impressive portfolio of dynamic, competitively priced websites for small businesses and online publications, he was hired to build the official website for global humanitarian, Mazie Green Holland, U.S. Representative of the Diaspora African Forum Mission, which labors to bring together people of African descent, from all over the world, to become involved in Africa's economic development and the building of the African Union.

He has called his work, with U.S. Representative Holland, some of the most important work of his career.

Prior to beginning a career in publishing, Mel Dyer earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Howard University, where he minored in Human Communications Studies, and interned with The Larry King Radio Show (then, at Mutual Broadcasting System).

Presently, Mel Dyer lives in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. In October of 2013, after nearly seven years as its English Language Secretary, he left the Latino Culture Council of the Hill Area to become the President of the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill, a non-profit organization serving youth in economically challenged communities. In 2007, through Kiwanis, he tutored inner city youth, while volunteering with the Southeast White House, a local, faith-based, community service organization.

Mel Dyer is the great grandnephew of Mexican and Afro-American labor hero, Mentha Dyer Morrison. He is a cousin of New York Times journalist and best-selling author, Brent Staples, and a nephew of legendary pop music composers, Robert and Richard Poindexter, the geniuses behind hits, Backfield In Motion and the Persuaders' classic, Thin Line Between Love And Hate.

Mel's birthday, July 30th, is also globally recognized as Friendship Day.

A Boyhood In Creeks

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