Nancy Mercado has a doctoral degree from Binghamton University- the State University of New York. She is the author of It Concerns the Madness (Long Shot Productions) and the forthcoming Rooms for the Living: New York Poems featuring an introduction by writer, Ishmael Reed. She served as the editor of, if the world were mine; a children’s anthology published by the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), was an editor of Long Shot (1993 - 2004) and the publication’s editor-in-chief for one of those years. Nancy also served as a contributing editor and writer for Letras Femeninas volume XXXI, No 1: The Journal of theAsociación de Literatura Femenina Hispánica of Arizona State University.
She has been included in The Encyclopedia of Hispanic American Literature (Facts on File) and was inducted into The Museum of American Poetics. Nancy was also profiled in Latino Leaders Magazine Volume 7 No 6.
She has toured throughout the US, Europe and in Canada as a featured poet and conference panelist; an abbreviated list includes: Club 350, Toronto Canada * Eastern New York Correctional Facility; a maximum security prison in New York * Espace Simone de Beauvoir, France * Festival of Arts and Ideas, New Haven, Connecticut * Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival * Kutztown State University, Pennsylvania * La Raza Center, San Francisco, California * New York City Book Expo * New York City Town Hall * New York University in the Yari Yari Pamberi: Black Women Writers Dissecting Globalization Conference, New York * Pannonica Jazz Club, France * Rutgers University, New Jersey * The Shakespeare Public Theater, New York * The State University of Illinois * The University of Nantes, France * Wiesbaden, Germany with jazz artist Billy Bang & his Quintet.
Her work has been anthologized in, among others: Pow Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience- Short Fiction from Then to Now (Da Capo Press); Kiss the Sky: Starring Jimi Hendrix (Paycock Press); Not in My Family: AIDS in the African American Community (Agate Publishing); Bowery Women Poems (YBK Publishing); In the Arms of Words: Poems for Tsunami Relief (Foothills Publishing and Sherman Asher Press); From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2002 (Thunder’s Mouth Press); Poetry After 911: An anthology of New York Poets (Melville House Publishers); Identity Lessons: Contemporary Writing About Learning to be American (Penguin); Changer L’Amérique Anthologie De La Poésie Protestataire Des USA (Maison De La Poésie) and ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café (Henry Holt).
A number of literary magazines have also published her work such as: Columbia University’s City Magazine; El Boletin del Centro from Hunter College-CUNY; GARE MARITIME published in France, New York University publications, Brownstone Magazine and The Gallatin Review; and independent magazines, A Gathering of the Tribes; Drum Voices; The Paterson Literary Review; and Rattapallax, among others.
The author and director of 7 theatre plays, Nancy’s theatre work has been produced in such venues as The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). Several were produced throughout the US and Puerto Rico and one of the plays was co-authored with renowned writer Pedro Pietri.
Nancy’s film credits include two video productions in the Poetry Spots series directed by Bob Holman and the documentary film, Yari Yari Pamberi: Black Women Writers Dissecting Globalization directed by Jayne Cortez.
She has served as a panelist for the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA).
Nancy is the co-founder of El Instituto de Cultural Lola Rodriguez de Tío located in New Jersey.
PROJECTED PUBLICATIONS include: 2nd collection of poetry, anthologies: Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York 1980 - 2010, and Latino Master Works Anthology.
