Mary was an early reader. She surprised her parents by learning to read at four and going on to read Charlotte’s Web and Peter Pan before first grade. In high school, her advanced reading helped her to earn a place in California’s state Academic Decathlon competition, winning gold medals in the literature exam over multiple years. Her love of reading continued through her first career path as a biologist, spurring her to write fiction during her off time. She earned a Bachelor of Science: Evolution, Ecology, and Conservation from the University of California San Diego, became a veterinarian’s assistant, then a field biologist in Ghana, Costa Rica, and Hawaii, and then a zookeeper at the San Francisco Zoo, while she wrote her first novel.
Inevitably her passion for reading and writing drew her to publishing and she made a career change in her early thirties.
She graduated from Mills College, Oakland with a MFA in Creative Writing and English, dabbled in freelance editing and copy-writing, and started an internship at Kimberley Cameron & Associates. She quickly fell in love with agenting, and dedicated two years as Kimberley’s assistant, before beginning her own client list in 2015. In 2019 she officially began agenting full time, and became a member of the AALA in 2020. She joined the team at Aevitas Creative Management in 2023.
She continues to read, both her old favorite authors/books: Anne McCaffrey, Don Quixote, Robin McKinley, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Octavia Butler, The Count of Monte Cristo, Toni Morrison, Blood Meridian, Charlotte Bronte, The Master & Margarita, Herman Hesse, Cosmic Banditos, John Steinbeck, Pride & Prejudice, Patricia A. McKillip, and also new favorites of debut/popular/contemporary fiction which she reviews on Instagram and Goodreads. She dabbles in short fiction and is constantly “working” on a novel, but her foremost love is agenting, partnering with writers to navigate and grow their careers.