Nancy Mercado

Associate Publisher & Editorial Director, 

Dial Books for Young Readers, Penguin 

Penguin Randon House

Seeking MG and YA or Picture Books

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Nancy Mercado began her career in the Scholastic Book Clubs in 1998 and has held editorial positions at Dial Books for Young Readers, Roaring Brook Press and Scholastic Press. Now back at Dial, she manages a team of brilliant editors and edits a select list of chapter books, middle grade and young adult novels, with an occasional picture book, non-fiction project and graphic novel thrown in for good measure. Over the years, Nancy has had the good fortune of editing books by Paul Acampora, Cecil Castellucci, Tommy Greenwald, Paul Griffin, Peter Raymundo, Isabel Quintero, Lauren Tarshis, Diana Lopez and many others. She is excited to continue in the Dial tradition of making books that will have a lasting impact on the canon of children’s literature and she is especially looking for diverse perspectives that remain underrepresented in children’s literature. She’d love to see more first- and second-generation immigrant stories, stories featuring characters with disabilities, a MG or YA novel that explored white privilege or colorism in the Latinx community, a school-based story about an inclusion or an ELL classroom, and overall more humorous family and friendship stories with a hopeful quality to them.