Juana Ponce de Leon

Juana Ponce de Leon is director of the New York Community Media Alliance and editor of Voices That Must Be Heard, the award-winning weekly online publication of reporting from ethnic and community newspapers. A former IPA Ethnic Journalist Fellow, Juana was editor-in-chief of Siete Cuentos Editorial, the Spanish-language imprint at Seven Stories Press. She is the executive director of Esta en tus manos, a nonprofit Spanish-language editorial organization. She served on the New York State Council on the Arts (2000-2003). She is a former editor of LS, the literary supplement for New Mass Media newspapers in MA, CT and NY. She has edited several literary collections, including Our Word is Our Weapon -- Selected Writings of Subcomandante Marcos and Dream With No Name -- Contemporary Cuban Fiction. She also co-edited an anthology of community testimonies titled In Search of Common Unity. In 2007, Mayor Michael Bloomberg honored her and NYCMA for work helping to improve the lives of immigrant New Yorkers.