Meet Nancy

Nancy L Meyer, she/her, lives in the unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands of San Francisco. Raised in 1950’s Massachusetts in a family of mixed religion, class, and a far-left political philosophy, she was often “the other” in school or social groups. She came of age during the Civil Rights era, marched in Selma, married a Jamaican and raised their son in the U.S. and Jamaica.

Well into her second marriage, Nancy found family documents exposing a colonial legacy of slave-holding and enrichment from the slave economy. She wrote The Stoop and The Steeple in response to this discovery and its upending of her family mythology as progessives, descended from educators, artists and farmers.

Writing helps me expose disparate fragments and make new wholes, Nancy says, describing herself as a late-life poet. She began to write after retiring as a social worker, women’s leadership educator and organization development consultant in healthcare.

She has published poems in over 50 journals in the United States and United Kingdom, including Tupelo Quarterly, The Colorado, McNeese, Laurel and Sugar House Reviews, Feral, and Halfway Down the Stairs. She is also included in nine anthologies and a recipient of a Hedgebrook Residency.

Jeffrey Levine of Tupelo Press, Sally Ashton of San Jose State and Rusty Morrison of Omnidawn have been powerful mentors, as are colleagues in multiple writing groups and a poetry book club. Most recently Nancy has formed Salt & Poetry with Jessica Cohn, Hilary King and Stephanie Pressman, over-50 Bay Area poets, who promote voice, connection and creativity to diverse audiences.

For 10 years Nancy volunteered as an End of Life counselor and is a 30-year participant in the Women’s Collaborative Leadership Community. She has served on the Boards of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, the Stanford Cantor Center for the Arts, and the Montalvo Arts Center where she helped re-launch their Lucas Artist Residency.

Nancy and her husband Chris, avid cyclists and travelers, split their time between a home they built, nestled against an Open Space preserve, and a San Francisco high rise where they are active members of a growing neighborhood. Three sons, their partners and five almost-adult grandchildren add joy to a life privileged by good health, long friendships and meaningful endeavors.

• Hedgebrook residency
• 3rd prize of the Nebraska Poetry Society National Contest
• Finalist Prime Number Magazine Single Poem Contest
• Honorable Mentions in the New Hampshire Poetry Society Touchstone Awards, the New Orleans Poetry Festival, the East Texas Poetry Society, the Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Contest, and the Los Gatos Poet Laureate contest.