Bronx Memoir Project (BMP) Workshop Series: Writing as Witness

BCA's culminates with Series VI, Writing as Witness led by Nancy Mercado. This free hybrid workshop series is open to all regardless of writing experience.

In this four-part memoir writing workshop, students will be encouraged to write Poetry or Prose that is based on what they have witnessed or are witnessing in their lives, in society, in their dreams.

Class I: What is a Witness?

Saturday, March 22, 2025 via Zoom

Workshop participants will engage with the instructor in discussions regarding the nature of being a witness. What does it mean to be a witness? Does one have to witness something directly to be a witness? Can one person serve as another person's witness? Can anything be witnessed? A list of possible topics/prompts will be generated by the discussion.

Class II: I Witness My Self

Saturday, March 29, 2025 via Zoom

Workshop participants will write, as witnesses of their selves: their image of their selves, their home life. As a springboard for students to write, topics/prompts that were generated in previous discussions will be used.

Class III: I Witness Society

Saturday, April 5, 2025 via Zoom & Wakefield Library

Workshop participants will write, as witnesses of society: their neighborhood, the country and/or the world. As a springboard for students to write, topics/prompts that were generated in previous discussions will be used.

Class IV: I Witness My Dream(s)

Saturday, April 12, 2025 via Zoom & Wakefield Library

Workshop participants will write, as witnesses of their dream/s. As a springboard for students to write, topics/prompts that were generated in previous discussions will be used.

About the Instructor

Nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize, Nancy Mercado is the recipient of the 2017 American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement presented by the Before Columbus Foundation. She was named one of 200 living individuals who best embody the work and spirit of Frederick Douglass on the occasion of his bicentennial by the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. She also received a Herencia Award: Trailblazer in the Latino Community from the New Jersey Hispanic Research and Information Center, Newark Public Library and a Distinguished Contributions to the Latino Community (CLAC award) presented by Rutgers University’s Center for Latino Arts and Culture.

Dr. Mercado holds a doctoral degree from Binghamton University-SUNY, a master’s degree from New York University, a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University, and was also accepted into the Dramaturgy Department at Yale University.

She is the editor of the first Nuyorican Women Writers Anthology published in Voices e/Magazine, an online literary journal published by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College- CUNY. A guest curator for the Museum of American Poetics, she is also an assistant editor and a board member of Eco–Poetry, a website dedicated to addressing the issue of the climate crisis.

Dr. Mercado has featured on National Public Radio’s, All of It, The Talk of the Nation, and the PBS NewsHour Special; America Remembers 9/11. She is the author of It Concerns the Madness (a poetry collection), Las Tres Hermanas (a children’s coloring book), and editor of if the world were mine (a children’s anthology). She also authored seven theater plays, which were all produced.

Her poetry, essays, and short fiction have appeared in numerous collections in the U.S. and abroad. Her critique of the Broadway Musical West Side Story, appears in Bigotry on Broadway (Baraka Books). Dr. Mercado guest edited a special issue of Konch Magazine featuring over 60 writers and artists from across the country. This special issue celebrates the life of Miguel Algarín, the late founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. For more info. go to www.nancy-mercado.com.

Host or Publisher Bronx Council on the Arts