Nancy Donegan graduated from Brown University with an M.A. in Creative Writing (Poetry) in 1984. She has published a book of poems The Forked Rivers with Alice James Press in 1989. Her poems have been published in journals and magazines including: Dark Horse, Soundings/East, The Brown Journal of the Arts, Tendril (featured poet in 1981) Clerestory, Willow Springs, The Notre Dame Review, Writ, Southern Illinois Review.

She has given public readings at The Providence Athenaeum, in 1993, 1991, 1990, 1989. She has read at RISD in 1992, at Brown in 1990 and at Harvard in 1990. In 1993 she gave a reading at the Bookstore Café with the Pitman Street Poets. Among her awards are an American Academy of Poets award, and in 1990 a Rhode Island Fellowship award.

Since 1986, she has worked as an adjunct lecturer in the English Department at Brown University, teaching fiction writing, poetry writing and autobiographical writing. She has also taught poetry writing for the Brown Learning Community for adult writers. Her new collection, Beyond Your Eyes, is nearing completion.