Nancy Burke ’73 Named BHS Alumna of the Year

The Bloomfield Educational Foundation 2026 Awards Gala proudly honors Nancy Burke ’73 as Alumna of the Year.

Ask Nancy Burke what is her most important role in life, and she’ll answer, “Mother.”  But ask what she does, and she’ll say, “Write!” adding “And of course, teach.” The circuitous route to becoming a writer mirrors the journey many women take through education, work, marriage, motherhood and empty nest, and her work reflects these chapters of reinvention since her days as a student at BHS (’73).

Nancy began writing in 1995, the year her father died. His passing compelled her to get started on her dream to write and to publish. She took writing workshops, most notably, with Alice Elliott Dark and Sheila Kohler and went back to college (Rutgers’ Newark MFA in Creative Writing, 2011) at age 55. The results are Only the Women are Burning, a feminist sci-fi mystery about women who meet the expectations of others but often neglect their own inner fire, her short story collection Death Cleaning and Other Units of Measures, and a work of non-fiction, If I Could Paint the Moon Black (2014).  The journey from manuscripts to books spanned twenty years during which her primary focus was her family. And she’s now adapting her first novel, From the Abuelas’ Window (published in 2006) into a musical for the stage. Those twenty years saw publication of her short stories in lit journals, finalist recognition of her adaptation to a screenplay of Only the Women, and honorable mention from the JF Powers Short Fiction award.

While raising, as she would put it, “her three amazing and accomplished daughters” she formed a support group for mothers that helping women navigate the switch from work to home and back again. It endured in the Montclair/Bloomfield area for eighteen years (Formerly Employed Mothers at the Leading Edge or F.E.M.A.L.E).  She chaired PTA volunteer projects in the Montclair Public Schools, led school groups through the Newark Museum of Art and simulated missions to space at the Buehler Challenger Center. At St. Theresa of Calcutta parish, she chaired fundraising efforts for a Refugee Resettlement program from 2016 to 2020.

As manager of The Industry-Business Institute at Union County College, from 2011 to 2021 she used the business communications expertise she gained at AT&T and The Ultimate Corp in her early career and built an organization that brought together businesses, government and education, serving the employers and job seekers of Union County.

She has taught at Montclair State University, Kean University, Bloomfield College and New Jersey Institute of Technology. Her courses include academic, research, literature and creative writing. She freelances as a journalist, leads writing critique groups, hikes, kayaks and travels extensively.

Reservations for the 2026 BEF Awards Gala are available online here.