If you'd like Glenda to read or speak to your group, if you'd like more information, or you have a comment, please contact her using the links to social media at the top right or the comment form below. Thank you for visiting! 

    Please contact Glenda using the form below. 

Born in Upstate South Carolina, Glenda Bailey-Mershon is a Romani-American poet, essayist, and novelist. She has explored in writing her mixed heritage. Her published works include a novel, Eve's Garden (Twisted Road); a forthcoming poetry collection entitled Weaver's Knot: Poems (Finishing Line Press) and two chapbooks––Bird Talk: Poems (Wild Dove) and saconige/blue smoke: Poems from the Southern Appalachians (Jane's Stories Press Foundation). She also published the well-used A History of the American Women's Movement: A Study Guide, and edited four volumes of the Jane's Stories anthologies by women writers, including the immigration anthology, Bridges and Borders. She has worked with writers from around the world and read to many audiences. 

Her first novel, Eve's Garden, is the story of three generations of women from a Romani-American North Georgia family, who cope with being outsiders in a harsh social environment through the bonds of kinship and friendship. It was published in September 2014 by Twisted Road Publications, and is still available as an e-book. 

Glenda has been a finalist in Our Stories fiction contest; featured author at the Illinois Book Fair; and a grant recipient from both the Illinois and Florida Humanities Councils as well as the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. Links to her blog, Weaver's Knot, and to her book reviews at The Inspiration Shelf newsletter can be found below.

​But even before she began to publish her work widely, Glenda was shaking up the world. 

As a teenager, she supported the Greenville County, South Carolina bus boycott and worked as a volunteer in the Jobs and Justice program in Atlanta, Georgia. She was involved in the ERA campaign to pass an amendment guaranteeing women's rights as a South Suburban chapter leader in the National Organization for Women, headed the Illinois NOW state chapter and the Illinois NOW Political Action Committee, and edited the 10,000 member-subscribed Illinois NOW Times. As Illinois NOW President, she was instrumental in establishing Women's Lobby Day on issues including economic justice and domestic violence. Bailey-Mershon led a rally in downtown Chicago following the verdict in the O. J. Simpson murder trial that was acclaimed for its sensitivities to racial justice and support for domestic violence survivors. As a board member of the Foundation for Romani Education and Equality, she tutored Romani youth and organized a slide lecture presentation on Romani history. She also serves as an Associate Member of the European Roma Institute for Art and Culture (ERIAC).

After earning a degree in anthropology from Knox College and graduate degree in community planning from Governors State University, Glenda began helping local communities to unearth long-buried stories. She earned an Award of Merit from the Illinois Historical Society for her pioneering work in using oral methods to compile a history of Park Forest, Illinois, one of the first post-World War II planned communities. She consulted on numerous other local histories and wrote and carried out two grants from the Florida Humanities Council for historical collections focusing on the African-American Lincolnville community in St. Augustine, Florida. One of her efforts resulted in a film called Somebody Started Singing that was written, directed, and filmed by teenagers chronicling the evolution of the St. Augustine civil rights movement. With Barbara Henry Vickers, she directed the Roots & Flowers project, gathering photographs and oral history accounts of a Black community that began with the first European invasion of American territory. 

Her political organizing has focused on combatting racism and achieving women's rights as well as economic and environmental justice. 

She retired as Assistant Director of the Public Policy Analysis PhD. Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she also completed post-graduate work in History and Women's Studies and served in the Women's Studies Teaching Collective. At the college level, she has taught anthropology, political science, and creative writing.