About Nancy

Nancy Townsley is a journalist, novelist, essayist and devoted fan of the river life. She lives in a floating home along the Multnomah Channel west of Portland, Oregon, where she walks, runs, sews, and writes. She is a true believer in the value of fact-based news.

During her 38-year career as a community newspaper reporter and editor, Nancy earned state and national awards for her writing and editorial work, including from the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. 

Her flash piece, “Halfway Out,” appears in *2020: The Year of the Asterisk, a collection of essays about life during the coronavirus pandemic (University of Hell Press, 2021). Her creative work has appeared in Newsweek, Mountain Bluebird Magazine, The Timberline Review, Nailed, The Big Smoke America, The Riveter, Elephant Journal, and at runnersworld.com. Her essay “Running Commentary” was included in the anthology Brave on the Page: Oregon Writers on Craft and the Creative Life (Forest Avenue Press, 2012), a Powell’s Small Press Bestseller that year. 

In February 2020, she joined Forest Avenue Press Publisher Laura Stanfill's class at Portland State University, speaking to students about fact checking and cultivating reliable news sources.

In May 2021, she  led an online salon discussion about news-consumption savvy and the state of journalism in the U.S., attended by residents of River West Village in Southwest Portland. 

In October 2023 she was a guest on Portland author Caroline Miller's "Just Read It" video series along with author and book coach William Kenower of Washington state.