About Mary

 

“I write for the same reason that I breathe—because I have to.”  Isaac Asimov

About Mary

Mary has been a writer and artist her whole life.

Currently working on her second Cli-Fi eco-thriller set on California’s Central Coast     

The long version (TMI):

A native Californian, born and raised in Pasadena, Mary started writing her first novel, a noir thriller, in sixth grade, to the consternation of her teacher and parents. Since first grade, she’s written poetry—some of it published, including several chap books. She was an active member of the Emerald Street Poets for several years.  In addition, Mary’s photography and articles on gardening, nature, education, travel, food, wine and art have appeared in magazines and online journals. Fruit of the Devil, released by Paper Angel Press in the Fall of 2019, is Mary’s first published novel.

 After earning a BA (English Literature, minor Social Science – UC Irvine, 1970), during the height of the VietNam War, Mary and her Navy Corpsman wasband lived in Pennsylvania, near the now-shuttered naval hospital (amputee and psych center of the war). From there, they explored the East Coast. In ’74, they returned to Santa Cruz so that her Navy veteran spouse could finish his physics degree on the GI bill. Mary got a job as admin assistant with the newly formed UCSC Sociology Board, where she was fortunate to work for and learn from some truly great professors, many of them forged in the fire of UC Berkeley in the ’60’s — like the board chair, radical sociologist Dr. Robert Alford, G. William Domhoffauthor of Who Rules America, Dr. William Friedland, whose work on the sociology of agriculture influenced Mary’s writing of Fruit of the Devil, and also the esteemed Dr. Herman Blake, founder of Oakes College and a personal friend of Alex Haley. Dr. Blake would often come into the sociology office on some pressing academic administrative errand and, if Mary asked him a question about some random thing on her mind, like where does racism come from, he would sit on the corner of her desk and patiently talk with her, a curious little white girl, as if he he had nothing better to do. Those generous informal interactions with brilliant and far-seeing human beings helped form Mary’s world view.  

Mary loves to learn about diverse peoples, cultures, history, and geography, and has so far traveled to Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, Australia and Alaska. She spent time in Wounded Knee and Standing Rock with the Lakota, studied with Acoma Pueblo potter Lucy Lewis, visited with the Kumeyaay of San Diego, is a friend of Ohlone tribal elder Ann-Marie Sayers of Indian Canyon, and has been involved in local land use issues of concern to the Ohlone. Mary searches for ways, as participant-observer and writer, to see through cultural, class, ethnic, and geographic divides to discover the common threads that unite us all.

In 1976, she dissolved her marriage and earned her second B.A. (Honors in Art, focus Ceramics) from the University of California at Santa Cruz, then worked as an independent studio potter, also managing a student pottery at UCSC and teaching as a SPECTRA artist in the schools. In ’84, she attended graduate school at UC Santa Cruz in Education, with an emphasis in Environmental Education, and worked as an outdoor school naturalist, then as a classroom teacher in both elementary and secondary public schools. In 2000, she earned an M.A. in Instructional Technology from San José State University. She retired from teaching in 2010, to devote herself full-time to her own creative work, a wild bird finally set free from its cage.

Since the 1980’s she has lived in a cottage on the Central California coast with her partner—retired from NASA Ames’s atmospheric and planetary sciences research division (ozone hole, climate change, MARS project, SETI)Meet Joe” here —and their two dogs, cat, koi, chickens, and gopher herd. She spends her time practicing permaculture gardening on their urban “micro” farm, plein air oil painting, making pottery, bird watching, swimming in the bay, altogether enjoying life on the Monterey Bay, and of course—writing.

In 2022, she participated in her first professional show of her plein air oil paintings at the Coastal Arts League Gallery in Half Moon Bay. Her ceramics is sold at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center Gift Shop and at craft fairs.

She’s a member of Santa Cruz Oil Painters, Mystery Writers of AmericaSisters in Crime, the Silicon Valley Chapter of Romance Writers of America, the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association, and Santa Cruz Women of Mystery, as well as Californians for Pesticide Reform, Safe Ag Safe Schools, and other environmental conservation organizations.

Mary has participated in numerous writer’s conferences around the country, including the Squaw Valley Community of Writers , BreadLoaf  Orion and ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Environment); the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference, and the San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Pacific Northwest Writers’ Conferences. 

Mary is currently working on her second social and environmental justice-themed cli-fi mystery novel. Her first published novel, Fruit of the Devil, was released by Paper Angel Press on October 15, 2019. In 2014, an early draft of Fruit of the Devil, was selected as a finalist in both the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association writing competition and the PEN / Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, established by Barbara Kingsolverone of the authors Mary most admires.

To find out more about Fruit of the Devil, see About the Novel under the Wild Strawberries dropdown menu. For an inside look at the progress of the novel, from concept to publication, and a deeper exploration of the novel’s  thematic threads, follow the Wild Strawberries Blog Posts. Also see Mary’s Author Statement and Reviews of Fruit of the Devil on the dropdown menu.

Mary would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment on any of the comment sections on this website’s pages and posts. Thank you for visiting!

 

 

8 thoughts on “About Mary”

  1. Hello, Mary, I was reading Vroman’s highlighted authors of the month newsletter…and your name popped up!
    Both your books look great and I will start with the first one.
    When you lived in Pasadena…..did you go to school with me….Annette Carhartt and Dianne Curran, Mary Lou Lieber and Molly Callaghan? We think you did.
    It brought great memories back to us. You?

    Annette Carhartt, Class of 1966
    Dianne Curraan, Class of 1965

  2. I loved your website and thought your bio was very interesting and informative. It seems that I could learn a lot from you. Although, I am not into fiction writing at all, I am more into writing about real life, God, blog, and copywriting. My book, as quiet as it is kept, is sort of autobiographical in that it stems from my relationship with God. Although, I must admit I do not, currently, attend church- nothing against it, it is just that, for me, it was not necessary for me to live righteous. I look forward to reading your book, it seems interesting, but more importantly, I look forward to getting to know you because I think I could learn a great deal from you. I am currently, along with writing, trying to become a Life Coach, based largely off the book- so if you know anyone in need of Life Coaching please let me know. And please let me know what you think of my book/blog.

  3. It was a pleasure meeting you and your husband at the “Harvest Moon”. Looking forward to reading your book (and learning)! When we were driving away we were all inspired and were thinking how lucky we are to meet people at just the right moment in time.

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