Mary’s work has appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, The Hong Kong Review, The Colorado Sun, Ruminate Magazine, Braided Way, BlueHouse Journal, Speckled Trout Review, and The Writers Workshop Review among others. Her first collection of essays, At Home in the Elk River Valley: Reflections on Family, Place and the West, was recognized as a 2012 Regional Nonfiction Finalist by the National Indie Excellence Book Award program. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Regis University in Denver, Colorado. Apertures, Findings from a Rural Life is her second collection. Mary finds inspiration for her writing in the landscape of rural northwestern Colorado where she and her husband raise hay and quarter horses. Visit her at www.marybkurtz.com and view the landscape she writes about.
My Path to Publication of Apertures: Findings from a Rural Life from Shanti Arts Publishing, September 2022 Premise My book, Apertures: Findings from a Rural Life, is a memoir-in-essays, following the examples of David Lazar’s Body of Brooklyn and Harrison … Continue reading →
Our fall/winter writing contest judge, Molly Tinsley, chose “Why I Write,” a personal essay by Mary Kurtz, as our first-place winner. Molly said in her notes about this essay: “Emotional control of the narrative makes Mary’s experience all the more riveting and poignant. I was swept up by the vivid flow of habitual action interrupted … Continue reading →
It seemed to me that if we copied Thomas’ technique of speaking in paired commands, we might write well. Although I didn’t expect readers to necessarily write tight villanelles as a result of the exercise (I actually suggested repeating the lines throughout an essay), two Writing It Real subscribers sent me the villanelles they’d created … Continue reading →