ABOUT
MARY: A Journal of New Writing is a student run online arts journal sponsored by Saint Mary’s College of California’s MFA in Creative Writing program. Since 2002, MARY has published contemporary poetry and prose from a diverse group of talented emerging writers and established artists, including: D.A. Powell, Gillian Conoley, Bruce Smith, Elizabeth Robinson, Rebecca Curtis, Carol Snow, K. Silem Mohammad, Matthew Zapruder, and Dorathea Lasky. MARY has also published interviews with award-winning writers such as Michael Palmer, Nick Flynn, Susan Steinberg, Michael Pollan, John D’Agata, Jo Ann Beard, Mary Roach, Forrest Gander, and Kent Johnson.
Every year, MARY: A Journal Of New Writing comes out with a creative new issue that includes Creative Non-Fiction, Fiction, Poetry, Reviews, and Interviews. The 2022 issue of MARY presents various styles of writing and content from a diverse group of writers.
Please enjoy the Winter 2022 issue of MARY: A Journal Of New Writing, brought to you by the Saint Mary’s College of California MFA Program, the MARY staff, and the wonderful writers who contributed to the journal.
STAFF
Fiction Editor
Bobbi Solano is a second year fiction student and an alumna of California State University, Stanislaus, from which she graduated with her B.A. in English in the spring of 2021. She also minored in journalism. Her short stories and potential novel in progress focus on women, their relationships with family, friends, and themselves. She loves all things horror and hopes to one day write the fat, powerful female slasher of her dreams.
She comes to MARY having gained previous experience from Penumbra, her undergrad's literary and arts journal. She also received her first acceptance this past summer from Livina Press for their inaugural issue.
Nonfiction Editor
Faith Hanna is a Panamanian-American MFA candidate, writing fellow, student advocate, and nonfiction journal editor at St. Mary’s College of California. In her free time, she struggles to be a vegan, often capitulating to cheese pizza, which prompts fair questions about her hazy rigidities. Her essays and short stories have appeared in The Los Angeles Review, CCSF's Forum, Athena Talks, Mazing, and Relate Magazine.
Editor-in-Chief
Kehinde Badiru is a second-year MFA Writing student here at SMC. He received an M.A in English Literature from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, and currently serves as Editor-In-Chief for MARY, Writing Facilitator at the Center for Writing Across the Curriculum, RiskPress Fellow, and member of the SMC Student Advisory Board. Kehinde is managing his Hollywood fantasy and learning to not be afraid of heights, again. His work has been published in Oyez Review, Visual Verse, RiskPress, FourThreeThree, and elsewhere. Find him online at kehindebadiru.com
Poetry Editor
Sarah Ray writes poetry about humans, nature, and how they connect. She also often finds herself writing about her life as a mother of two kids. When she isn't writing, she is gardening, birdwatching, teaching and spending time with her kids. Sarah received her B.A. in Education from University of Missouri-Columbia and is a '23 poetry MFA candidate. Find her online at sraypoet.com.
Social Media/PR
Diana is an artist from Kentucky who writes poems, plays, and songs about her experiences growing up surrounded by poverty, addiction, and love. She writes music with her partner in the band Please Save My Earth and still hopes love will change the world.
Faculty Editor
Matthew Zapruder is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Father’s Day, from Copper Canyon in Fall 2019, as well as Why Poetry, a book of prose. He is editor at large at Wave Books, where he edits contemporary poetry, prose, and translations. From 2016-7 he held the annually rotating position of Editor of the Poetry Column for the New York Times Magazine. He teaches in the MFA and English Department at Saint Mary’s College of California.
Faculty Editor
Chris Feliciano Arnold has written essays and journalism for The Atlantic, Harper's, Foreign Policy, Outside, Vice News, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Folha de S. Paulo and more. The recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he has published fiction in Playboy, The Kenyon Review, Ecotone and other magazines. Along the way, his work has been noted in The Best American Sports Writing and The Best American Short Stories. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where he is Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of California. His first book, The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First Century Amazon, is a work of narrative nonfiction published by Picador in 2018.