Mary Agria

Last updated
Mary Agria
Maryphotolarger.jpg
Born (1941-03-21) March 21, 1941 (age 83)
United States
OccupationAuthor
Education University of Wisconsin–Madison (BA, MA)
University of Bonn

Mary A. Agria (born March 24, 1941) is an American writer who spent her early career as a journalist and non-fiction writer, then in 'retirement' began writing a series of novels that deal with the issues facing older Americans, including finding meaning in one's senior years, resolving parent-child relationships and facing the ultimate realities of change and loss that are part of the human experience.

Contents

In 2006 her novel, Time in a Garden, appeared on best-seller fiction lists all over northern Michigan. She has written five novels (For Things Left Undone, 2001; Time in a Garden, 2006; Vox Humana: The Human Voice, 2007; In Transit, 2008; and Community of Scholars, 2009) and numerous non-fiction books, articles and texts.

Life and influences

Childhood

Agria grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin where her mother worked as executive secretary to the president of a large fraternal life insurance company. Her father was a mechanical engineer with an international paper company. Family life instilled in her a deep love of writing and travel. As a sixth grader she wrote the winning script about Stephen Foster for a school drama contest. In high school and early college, she worked as a journalist summers for The Post-Crescent in Appleton, the paper that gave Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Edna Ferber her start—a writer whose style Agria always admired.

Education

She earned her BA in English (1964) and an MA in German literature and linguistics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1965. She spent 1962 and 1963 studying theater arts at the University of Bonn, Germany thanks to a Marshall Plan scholarship. Her undergrad thesis on the songs in Bertolt Brecht's Three Penny Opera and John Gay's Beggar's Opera was a winner of the UWM undergrad essay competition.

Early career

After a job in Public Relations and as freelance editor at UW Press-Madison, Agria became director of a Work-Education Council in Alma, Michigan designated by the US Department of Labor as a model for innovative community development programs. The experience resulted in consultancies and freelance writing assignments in the career field and on rural issues. Periodic moves throughout her marriage to now retired University President Dr. John Agria opened many diverse job and life changes all of which she uses in her writing. She wrote grants for a Long Island, NY, music school, worked as chaplain for United Campus Ministries in New York, and directed a community development think-tank at Thiel College in Pennsylvania. As researcher for the Center for Theology and Land in Dubuque, Iowa, she traveled extensively, studied and wrote about rural life.

Recent years

Community building remains an important undercurrent in her novels, the power of relationships to promote growth and change. A church organist since her early teens, after "retiring" to Long Island, New York, Agria served as organist/music director of several churches — a background she put to good use in her novel, Vox Humana: The Human Voice. One of her many accomplishments as a church music director was producing and directing a fully staged medieval mystery play, Nativity, from her script compiled from several early manuscripts. She also learned to weave for Vox Humana, seeing strong ties between music and that ancient art form. A love of community gardening in the northern Michigan summer Chautauqua community of Bay View inspired her 2006 best-selling novel, Time in a Garden — a love song to the aging process, spirituality and gardening. In Transit, about lives and families in transition, was researched on travels with her husband in their motor home, including a 2007 coast-to-coast book tour.

As mother of four daughters and a growing brood of grandchildren, the healing power of love, family and community runs through her work.

Selected works

Novels

Nonfiction books and texts

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Walker</span> American author and activist (born 1944)

Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awarded for her novel The Color Purple. Over the span of her career, Walker has published seventeen novels and short story collections, twelve non-fiction works, and collections of essays and poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Shields</span> Canadian writer

Carol Ann Shields was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award in Canada.

Marjorie Harris is a Canadian writer of non-fiction, particularly in gardening.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Proulx</span> American novelist, short story and non-fiction author (born 1935)

Edna Ann Proulx is an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. She has written most frequently as Annie Proulx but has also used the names E. Annie Proulx and E.A. Proulx.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Kingsolver</span> American author, poet and essayist (born 1955)

Barbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel Demon Copperhead. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thea Astley</span> Australian novelist and short story writer (1925 – 2004)

Thea Beatrice May Astley was an Australian novelist and short story writer. She was a prolific writer who was published for over 40 years from 1958. At the time of her death, she had won more Miles Franklin Awards, Australia's major literary award, than any other writer. As well as being a writer, she taught at all levels of education – primary, secondary and tertiary.

Sydney J. Van Scyoc was an American science fiction writer. Her first published story was "Shatter the Wall" in Galaxy in 1962. She continued to write short stories throughout the 1960s and in 1971, published her first novel, Saltflower. Other novels followed until 1992, when she abandoned writing to make and sell jewelry. Gordon Van Gelder, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction published her first story in more than 20 years in the December 2004 issue. He stated in an introduction to the story that: "in June 1992, after years of writing fiction, she became obsessed with jewelry making and spent a decade selling earrings and bracelets in the San Francisco Bay area. Last year she retired from that trade and now spends most of her time gardening and conferring with her cats...and, yes, writing again." Van Gelder would publish one more story in the December 2005 issue of his magazine and at that time stated in the introduction: "Joyce Van Scyoc lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and spends all summer gardening until the October rains drive her inside."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Yronwode</span>

Catherine Anna Yronwode is an American writer, editor, graphic designer, typesetter, and publisher with an extensive career in the comic book industry. She is also a practitioner of folk magic.

Olive Marjorie Senior is a Jamaican poet, novelist, short story and non-fiction writer based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was awarded the Musgrave Gold Medal in 2005 by the Institute of Jamaica for her contributions to literature. Senior was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marya Hornbacher</span>

Marya Justine Hornbacher is an American author and freelance journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roxana Robinson</span> American novelist and biographer (born 1946)

Roxana Robinson is an American novelist and biographer whose fiction explores the complexity of familial bonds and fault lines. She is best known for her 2008 novel, Cost, which was named one of the Five Best Novels of the Year by The Washington Post. She is also the author of Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, and has written widely on American art and issues pertaining to ecology and the environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Rosenblum</span> American novelist

Mary Rosenblum was an American science fiction and mystery author.

Marion Mildred Halligan AM was an Australian writer and novelist. She authored twenty-three books, including fiction, short-fiction, and non-fiction. Her novel, Lovers' Knots (1992) won The Age Book of the Year, The ACT Book of the Year and the inaugural Nita B. Kibble Award. The Golden Dress (1998) was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, The Dublin IMPAC Award and The Age Book of the Year. Her novels The Point (2003) and Valley of Grace (2009) also won The ACT Book of the Year. Halligan Served as Chairperson of the Literature Board of the Australia Council (1992-95) and the Australian National Word Festival. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), General Division, in 2006 'for service to Literature as an author, to the promotion of Australian writers and to support for literary events and professional organisations'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Loudon</span> English science fiction writer and botanist

Jane Loudon, also known as Jane C. Loudon, or Mrs. Loudon in her publications, was an English writer and early pioneer of science fiction. She wrote before the term was coined, and was discussed for a century as a writer of Gothic fiction, fantasy or horror. She also created the first popular gardening manuals, as opposed to specialist horticultural works, reframing the art of gardening as fit for young women. She was married to the well-known horticulturalist John Claudius Loudon, and they wrote some books together, as well as her own very successful series.

Emily Flora Klickmann was an English journalist, author and editor. She was the second editor of the Girl's Own Paper, but became best known for her Flower-Patch series of books of anecdotes, autobiography and nature description.

Margaret Simons is an Australian academic, freelance journalist and author. She has written numerous articles and essays as well as many books, including a biography of Senate leader of the Australian Labor Party, Penny Wong and Australian minister for the environment Tanya Plibersek. Her essay Fallen Angels won the Walkley Award for Social Equity Journalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessie Brown Pounds</span> American poet

Jessie Hunter Brown Pounds was an American lyricist of gospel songs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henrietta Batson</span> English writer

Henrietta Mary BatsonnéeBlackman (1859–1943) was an English writer whose interest in the countryside and rural people was an important theme in her novels and much of her non-fiction. She often published as Mrs. Stephen Batson, or sometimes as H.M. Batson.

Cath Crowley is a young adult fiction author based in Melbourne, Australia. She has been shortlisted and received numerous literary awards including the 2011 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction for her novel Graffiti Moon and, in 2017, the Griffith University Young Adult Book Award at the Queensland Literary Awards for Words in Deep Blue.

Angela Kirby is an English poet and non-fiction writer. Shoestring Press have published five of her poetry collections.