Mary is the author of IPPY award-winning Women Up On Blocks and co-author of Radical Gratitude and other life lessons learned in Siberia. She is editor-in-chief of the online journal r.kv.r.y., thrice awarded a Bread Loaf work-study scholarship, published in seven countries, and translated into four languages. Her fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in a number of international journals and she frequently writes fiction that focuses on the intersections between art and science, including such topics as diverse and timely as the environmental movement and the struggle for human and animal rights. She is a co-founder of the Institute for Tropical Marine Ecology, a study abroad marine ecology program originally located in Roseau, Dominica. In her spare time she enjoys snorkeling, hiking, backpacking, mountaineering, canoeing and snowshoeing. She currently lives in Western New York.