writing career began before she could actually
write. She never could stand being bored, so when dragged along on interminable shopping trips by her mother - an activity whose appeal she never could quite fathom, even as an adult - she entertained herself by making up stories about escapades by imaginary creatures in the fascinating universe that existed at the floor level of Kauffman's and Gimbel's department stores. You had these great shadowy spaces tucked between racks of clothes and behind mannequins, obviously overflowing with magic, and those mannequins themselves watched her with sardonic amusement, knowing that the grownups would never believe her if she told
them that these things were alive. You had interesting portals to other universes in the dressing room mirrors and strange girls peeped back at her, inviting her to step through while her mother was deciding between the blue and the green blouse.
She almost did, more than once.
But then, you had the dark spaces where the paneling didn't quite fit flush
to the wall, out of sight behind the saleslady's desk. That darkness watched Mary and she was pretty sure she caught the glint of a fang in there. So maybe hiding in the clothes racks until after everybody left and wandering the store to sit on the gorgeous, velvet covered sofas, snuggle in the beautifully made up canopy beds, or sample the chocolate-dipped strawberries in the candy case by the escalator wasn't really such a good plan after all.
So the stories were there from the start. They converged with writing in grade school of course, but teachers weren't really encouraging - you had to be born a writer, apparently, and Mary lacked the scarlet W on the forehead - and mostly she just made up complex and ongoing stories to keep herself entertained when she got stuck somewhere without a book. Or when the book she read didn't have any good female characters or the end was awful and clearly she had to fix that. And did. She rewrote a lot of stories, especially when she discovered Science Fiction in the form of a box of old Galaxy and Amazing Stories magazines under the bed of a rented beach house. Suddenly the enforced siestas were no problem at all. And of course none of the stories had women characters
who did fun stuff, so she had to revise them all...or the ones that interested her anyway.
It was a lot later, after she'd been writing and publishing nonfiction and had one publication in a scientific journal (she was working in endocrine research at the time), that Mary decided maybe she should write down some of these stories. She sent the first one off to Stan Schmidt at Analog and off to the Clarion West submissions folk. She got a sharp personal note from Stan (he apparently liked the story right up to the ending which was, he was quite right, rather abominably weak), but she got accepted to Clarion. And attended in 1988. And sold Gardner Dozois a story there, For a Price. And the rest, as they say... you can fill in the rest of the cliché yourselves.
Eight published novels and more than sixty short stories later -- all published by major markets -- She still loves writing as much as she did before she actually wrote the words down. She has also discovered a second love and equal talent; teaching. She loves sharing the gift and the passion and has a lot of students and mentees who have published. Sharing her knowledge and expertise is as satisfying as writing.
