Glenda Bailey-Mershon is a native of the northwest corner of
South Carolina and has lived for extensive periods in both the Midwest and the South.
Through the
civil rights, peace, and women’s movements, she has pursued and continues to
pursue the realization of a Beloved Community. She is the author of Sa-co-ni-ge/Blue
Smoke: Poems from the Appalachians, Bird Talk: Poems, and A History of the
American
Women's Movement: A Study Guide. She edited
three volumes of the Jane's Stories anthologies of
women's writing, working with writers from many states, countries, and cultures to showcase the diversity of women's writing.
A founding member of Jane's Stories Press Foundation’s
Writer’s Cooperative, she has also been a feminist bookseller and publisher
helping to promote women’s writing. A major focus of her life since her youth
in a Southern milltown has been poverty issues. Recently she helped initiate a
local crisis fund in St. Augustine, Florida, where she resides.
A
former consultant to the Illinois Humanities Council, she
has lately written and administered two Florida Humanities Council grants to
gather the history of the civil rights movement and African-Americans in St.
Augustine. Over the years and through many local projects, she has completed
more than twenty oral history interviews and helped to establish archives on
historical subjects of both local and national interest, including the feminist
movement in Illinois and the African-American and Native-American communities
in Florida.
Her family ancestry is Asian/American
Indian/European/African. For some years, she has worked on promoting the work of
other multiracial writers, participating in readings such as <i>Alternative Voices, Answering the Admiral,</i>
and <i>Multicultural Writers,</i> and has also helped establish a local memoir group
for African-Americans and opportunities in the arts for young people of color.
She lives near an exquisite marsh on the coast of Florida
with her husband and her beagle, Bell. Her son, Ansel Bailey-Mershon, is a youth worker and teacher, and visits home
frequently for Mom’s brownies.
Glenda cooks
for friends and looks for the art in life. Most
days, she finds it. Injuries from two auto accidents have damaged her muscles and nerves, but not her sense of humor.
