Discipline: Literature

Nicholasa Mohr

Discipline: Literature
Region: Brooklyn, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1972, 1974, 1976
Nicholasa Mohr is one of the best known Nuyorican writers. In 1973, she became the first Latin woman in the 20th century to have her literary works published by the major commercial publishing houses, and has had the longest creative writing career of any Latin female writer for these publishing houses. Her works tell of growing up in the Puerto Rican communities of the Bronx and El Barrio and of the difficulties Puerto Rican women face in the United States. Mohr has written books for all audiences, though primarily for young adults. She has also written screenplays, plays, and scripts for television. Mohr published her first book Nilda in 1973, which traces the life of a teenage Puerto Rican girl who confronts prejudices during the World War II era in New York. She was awarded the Jane Addams Children Book Award. She incorporated autobiographical material for the book even though it is a work of fiction. Drawing on her training and expertise in art, Mohr created the book jacket and eight illustrations for the book. Mohr’s second book, El Bronx Remembered, was published in 1975 by Harper & Row. It is a collection of stories and a novella about the struggles of Puerto Ricans living in New York from the late 1940s through the mid-1950s. It was awarded the New Times Outstanding Book Award, making Mohr the first Latin female to receive such an honor.

Studios

New Jersey

Nicholasa Mohr worked in the New Jersey studio.

The yellow clapboard New Jersey Studio, located on a grassy, sloping site, was funded by the New Jersey Federation of Women’s Clubs and built as an exact replica of Monday Music Studio (1913). The studio’s porch rests on fieldstone piers that increase in height as the ground slopes to the west. Like Monday Music Studio, New Jersey…

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