Mary Swander's Homepage

Mary's Swander's most recent work is a forthcoming book of poetry entitled The Girls on the Roof (Turning Point Press, 2009). This long narrative poem is the story of a mother and daughter stuck on top of the roof of catfish dive on the banks of the Mississippi River for three days during the 1993 flood. There, they discover they’ve both had an affair with the same man.

Ms. Swander’s award-winning memoir Out of this World: A Journey of Healing that was originally published by Viking/Penguin (1995) will be back in print by the University of Iowa Press in 2008.

Swander is also known for her memoir The Desert Pilgrim (Viking, 2003, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.) She is the author of three other books of poetry, Heaven-and-Earth House (Alfred Knopf, 1994), Driving the Body Back (Alfred Knopf, 1986), Succession (University of Georgia Press, 1979),as well as a book of literary interviews, Parsnips in the Snow (with Jane Staw, University of Iowa Press, 1990). Swander has edited three books: The Healing Circle: Authors on Recovery from Illness (Plume, 1998, with Patricia Foster); Bloom and Blossom, a collection of garden literature from Ecco Press (1997); and Land of the Fragile Giants, an edited collection of non-fiction and art work on the Loess Hills(with Cornelia Mutel, University of Iowa Press, 1994).

The University of Iowa Press reprinted Driving the Body Back in 1998. Ms. Swander adapted Driving the Body Back to the stage. This piece, along with her co-authored musical Dear Iowa (with composer Christopher Frank), have been produced across the Midwest and on Iowa Public Television. Ms. Swander performs her own work with Teri Breitbach of Eulenspiegel Puppet Company and also gives solo readings throughout the United States. Ms. Swander is a regular commentator on Iowa Public radio and writes a garden column for the on-line magazine MatriFocus.

Ms. Swander has won numerous awards including an Iowa Author’s Award (2006), a Whiting Award (The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, 1994), a National Endowment for the Arts grant for the Literary Arts ( 1986), two Ingram Merrill Awards (1980, 1986) , the Carl Sandburg Literary Award (The Chicago Public Library, 1981), and the Nation-Discovery Award (The Nation magazine, 1976) . Publisher's Weekly named Parsnips in the Snow one of the best books of 1990, and the Garden Writers Association of America awarded Swander their Quill and Trowel Award for best magazine writing of 1993. Ms. Swander has published individual poems, essays, short stories and articles in such places as The Nation , National Gardening Magazine, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Poetry magazine.

Ms. Swander received her M.F.A from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. She is a professor of English and a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University. She lives in an old Amish schoolhouse, raises geese, goats, and a large organic garden, and plays the banjo.