Published Writing
At the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up the Pieces Beacon Press
In At the Broken Places, my trans son, (Donald) Blake Collins, and I alternate chapters as we explore core issues we faced as he medically and socially transitioned during his teens and college years.
PRAISE FOR AT THE BROKEN PLACES:
★ Winner, Memoir/Biography Prize, American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), 2018
★ Gracie Award-winning Connecticut Public Radio interview, In Memoir, Mother and Trans Son ‘Pick up the Pieces’ of Relationship.
“When one person transitions, everyone transitions… A necessary and beautiful book.” -Jill Soloway, Creator, Transparent
“This is the best, most thorough narrative of trans experience I’ve read: mind, body and soul.” -Kate Bornstein, author, A Queer and Pleasant Danger
Airborne: A Photobiography of Wilbur and Orville Wright
National Geographic Books
This is the inspiring photobiography of Wilbur and Orville Wright, whose determination and curiosity led them to create the first working airplane. The newest edition adds common core-aligned critical thinking activities for even further learning in the classroom or at home.
Packed with intriguing photos of Wilbur and Orville Wright, their family, and their many experiments, this photobiography reveals the personalities and lives of these extraordinary young men who resolved those problems of flight that stumped the experts and built the first airplane that really could fly!
★ Recognized as a Top 10 Young Adult Biography by the New York Public Library and earned a starred Kirkus Review; Winner of Best Young Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year from American Society of Journalists and Authors.
A Play Book: Creating Writers, Creating Citizens
Entasis Press
In A Play Book, part memoir-part manifesto, Mary Collins, a creative writing professor with three decades of experience, taps into tales from her classroom and own childhood to highlight the steady decline in unsupervised play, intellectual flow, and reflection and what it all means for our democracy. The author picks up watercolor painting to add whimsy to her creative process and finds herself penning a collection of flash nonfiction essays and illustrations that make clear what she does with her students is about so much more than writing and vital for all citizens.
PRAISE FOR A PLAY BOOK:
“I dare anyone to read A Play Book: Creating Writers, Creating Citizens and not feel inspired to sit down immediately and start writing. A much-needed antidote to what is making us all, young and old, feel cut off from our senses, our creativity, our courage, and our common humanity.”
— Eileen Pollack, former director, Helen Zell MFA Program in Creative Writing, University of Michigan, and author of Maybe It’s Me: On Being the Wrong Kind of Woman.
American Idle: A Journey Through Our Sedentary Culture
Capitol Books
As author Mary Collins recovers from a devastating bicycle accident, she begins a journey to find out more about America’s wounded national body. American Idle offers the first comprehensive look at the social, cultural, moral and physical consequences of living in a sedentary culture that has immobilized us as effectively as a shattered body part. Collins explores the many forces that make it difficult for Americans to move in their daily lives in healthy ways and the consequences of not realizing that basic need.
★ Winner of the Grand Prize, Indie Book Awards, NYC, 2010
★ Honorable Mention, Best Adult Nonfiction Book, 2010, American Society of Journalists and Authors
Sample Collection of Essays
Includes previously published work in various journals, papers, and magazines. Outlets include: The Potomac Review, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and more.
Other Projects
The Bronzed Project
The Bronzed Project: Should My Uncle John be in Your Public Square? is a 200+ page free collection of essays and program guides that follow my travels around the US to visit statues of my various relatives in public squares. As I examine if they belong there or not, I interview people about race, class and the decline in our public discourse and craft essays and lesson plans for use in classrooms and library programs. How can we improve our public discourse? What do I learn from talking to people I don’t agree with on political and social issues, including my own extended family? I have worked with the Connecticut chapter of Braver Angels and hope to expand my work with them.
The Gold Star Magazine and Traveling Exhibit
I integrate community engagement work into many of my writing classes at Central Connecticut State University. I ask my students to use their writing, editing, and interviewing skills to story gather in their communities and then produce magazines or other print projects. The most ambitious project involved interviewing Gold Star mothers, who had lost sons in the Vietnam War, and producing a magazine of their stories and a traveling museum exhibit for the CT Veterans’ History Project and Connecticut’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the war.
Artist-in-Residence, National Park Service Petrified Forest
Teamed with Photographer Susan McElhinney, Photo Editor for the National Wildlife Federation, and former Photo Editor for National Geographic, to produce a photo/image exhibit for the Visitor Center at the Petrified Forest in Arizona of the employees, volunteers and visitors who use the park. Two- week assignment resulted in an exhibit at the center and the first art exhibit at the National Park Service’s Wolf Trap cultural center in Virginia.