PicturePhoto Ricardo Muñiz
The recipient of an American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement and named among the Frederick Douglass 200 on the anniversary of Douglass' birthday, Nancy Mercado is the editor of the Nuyorican Women Writers Anthology published in Voices e/Magazine, a Hunter College City University of New York online literary journal. She is a guest curator for the Museum of American Poetics and assistant editor for Eco-poetry.org; a web site dedicated to addressing the issue of climate crises. Mercado also created Eco-Poetry's companion FaceBook page. Over the years, she has presented her work throughout the US and abroad for such institutions and places as, the University of Nantes, France, the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference (AWP), The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Poetry Festival and in Havana, Cuba where she was invited to presented her work at Casa de las Americas.

A writer, editor, activist and educator, Mercado was featured on National Public Radio’s The Talk of the Nation, and the PBS NewsHour Special: America Remembers 9/11. Also featured in The Encyclopedia of Hispanic American Literature (Facts on File) and inducted into The Museum of American Poetics, she is profiled in Latino Leaders Magazine, as “one of the most celebrated members of the Puerto Rican literary movement in the Big Apple.”

Nancy Mercado’s work has been extensively anthologized in seminal literary collections such as Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity (Routledge), Powwow, American Short Fiction from Then to Now, edited by Ishmael Reed (De Capo Press), Changer L’Amérique Anthologie De La Poésie Protestataire Des USA (Maison De La Poésie, France) and ALOUD Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, edited by Miguel Algarin and Bob Holman (Holt Paperbacks) among others.

She served as the Guest Editor of Phati’tude Literary Magazine’s issue; ¿What’s in a Nombre? Writing Latin@ Identity in America, and as an editor of the acclaimed underground literary and art publication: Long Shot for 11 years; also serving as the publication’s editor-in-chief for one of those years.

The author of: It Concerns the Madness (Long Shot Productions), the coloring book: Las Tres Hermanas (Casita Maria) and the editor of if the world were mind; a children’s anthology published jointly by ASPIRA, International Youth Organization, The Leaguers Inc., Newark Housing Authority and FOCUS, Mercado has also authored 7 theater plays which have all been produced.

Nancy Mercado continues to present her work throughout the US and abroad as a featured poet and conference panelist. She received her PhD from Binghamton University, SUNY and is currently an Associate Professor in New York City.