Mary Collins

Home| |
Photo by Paul Cryan

Upcoming Readings or Events


Book Signing
American Idle
Bicycle Festival
Simsbury, CT
April 29, 2012, Sunday

Keynote Speaker
East Coast Greenway
Earth Day Celebration
Branford, CT
May 8, 2012, Tuesday

Special Note:
Vietnam Veteran Project
My CCSU students worked with a dozen Vietnam Veterans to produce a 125-page keepsake quality book to hand out to Vietnam Veterans in CT on March 31, 2012. If you want a free PDF of the project or a hard copy, please contact me at collinsmae@​ccsu.edu.


Other Authors You Should Read


What I'm Reading Now
In Search of Sacco and Vanzetti
by Susan Tejada
(Reading in Providence, RI May 31)

The Vietnam War: A Concise International History
by Mark Atwood Lawrence

General George Crook by my former JHU student
Paul Magid

The Disappearing Spoon by my former Johns Hopkins'
student Sean Kean

A Watershed Year (Guidepost Publishers), a new novel
by my friend Susan Schoenberger

Writer/Professor/Public Speaker

E-mail Mary Collins

SAMPLE BOOKS


Winner Grand Prize Nonfiction, 2010 Indie Book Awards
American Idle looks at the social, cultural, physical and spiritual consequences of our sedentary culture. How can we integrate movement back into everyday life again in the U.S.?

Sample American Idle Chapter (238.8KB)
Sample Award-Winning Essay (598.8KB)
Photobiography of the Wright brothers
National Geographic Books

Mary's essay, "Moving the Idle Masses," is one of six in WHAT I EAT: Around the World in 80 Diets, another great title in Menzel and D'Aluisio's award-winning Material World Series. Other essayists in this volume: Michael Pollan, Wendell Barry and Richard Wrangham.

Hear Mary Collins on WNPR "Where We Live"
Mary interviewed by Health Magazine
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
**Twenty year career as a writer and editor in Washington, DC for a range of clients, including National Geographic, the Smithsonian and Discovery Channel

**Tenured professor of Creative Nonfiction, Central Connecticut State University (2007 to present); Winner Teaching Award 2010; Director of Center for Teaching and Faculty Development

**Part-time professor at Johns Hopkins University MA in Writing Program, Washington, DC (1995-2007); Winner Teaching Award 2003; Winner Professional Achievement Award 2002; taught two graduate classes a term, ran the monthly reading series and helped oversee as many as 80 nonfiction advisees

**Veteran Guest Speaker for a range of clients, including Commencement Speaker, Boston University School of Public Health, 2010; Plenary Speaker, Annual Convention, National Center for Biking and Walking, 2010; Keynote speaker for a range of City Planning Annual Conventions and Bike/​Walk advocacy groups across the country

**Workshop leader and Writing Advisor for a range of corporate clients, including town governments, insurance companies, law offices; panelist at several major writing conferences, including Cape Cod Writers Conference, Baltimore Writers Conference and the Stonecoast Program in Maine

**Award-winning book author and essayist: Winner Grand Prize for Nonfiction at the 2010 Indie Book Awards; Best Book of the Year, American Independent Writers Group, 2010; Best Essay of the Year, Amercian Independent Writers, 2009; Best Essay of the Year, American Society of Journalists and Authors, 2003; Top 10 best YA Biography of the Year on Booklist and NY Public Library, 2003 and others


Agent: Kathi Paton, Kathi Paton Literary Agency
Contact: Kjplitbiz@​optonline.net