Hello!
I’m Mary Brown, a writer and editor living and working in North Carolina. I currently work as an Editorial Assistant at Wiley where I get to help authors and editors publish amazing manuscripts in scholarly journals. When writing for myself, I mainly subscribe to the speculative fiction genre but I'm no stranger to other writing styles (both creatively and formally). You’ll find I’m not afraid to lean into the fantasy, the horror, and the all-around weird in order to tell a story that ignites your curiosity and keeps you on the edge of your seat.
I received my Bachelor of Arts in English from Wake Forest University in May 2023 (yay!). With minors in Interdisciplinary Writing and Creative Writing, I've learned to constantly workshop my writing process and adapt my writing know-how to boost every project I take part in. A few of my writing projects have been published in Three to Four Ounces (a literary magazine), The Philomathesian Review (an academic journal), the Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle (a creative writing journal), and Stuck In Notes (a literary magazine).
When not writing and editing, you might find me casing out the nearest Barnes&Noble (you can never have too many books!), binge watching anything in the Marvel Universe, or playing with my cute yet wild Yorkie dog, Theo! I also have aspirations to travel as much as possible – there’s so much I want to see and do and write about. And I think I’m only getting started. 😊
My Writing Journey
What does it mean to be a writer? In some ways, I think being a writer requires an awareness of where you are and what you’re trying to do with the words you put on the page because truthfully, anyone can write. We do it all the time. It doesn’t matter what job you have; you are most likely going to write something whether it’s as fleeting as a text message or as long-winded as a business report. Writing is everywhere. It’s how we communicate and it’s simply amazing how a single sentence – a single word! – can change the way we interact with something. So, when I call myself a writer, I recognize this power that writing provides. I recognize its strength to set things in motion – to incite change. And I’m not just aware of this power, I put it to use. I like to think that writing is the closest thing I have to a superpower and (though it may be cliché), as the amazing Spiderman tells us, with great power comes great responsibility.
Now, I didn’t always see writing as this magical way to shape and interact with the world. It used to be another chore. Something I had to learn to get the grade (which I did, of course!). But then I started to see writing as a useful outlet. You see, I’ve always been the type of person who worries about and overthinks things. I’ll run a conversation over and over again in my head until I’m a ball of stressed-out anxiety. With writing, you can draft, edit, and revise until you’re comfortable with saying what you need to say. And you don’t have to just say it in a formal way. Yes, I’ve written my fair share of academic papers and serious reports, but I’ve learned you don’t have to limit yourself to that. If the best way to express an idea is through a poem, a short story, even a long Twitter thread, then why not?
It’s so very wonderful how versatile writing is. You can adapt it for anything. I find myself writing stories to talk about things my chaotic mind couldn’t put in normal terms. Through writing, I make my weird, little dreams (including the nightmares) a solid, physical thing that can be revisited, shared, and continually in conversation with all the other crazy things happening in the world. Why just live in reality when you can reinvent it? In fact, you’ll definitely see this take shape as you explore my writing portfolio. And so, I invite you to take a trip further down the rabbit hole that is me, my mind, and my writing.
