About Mary Dally-Muenzmaier

Mary Dally-Muenzmaier was born in 1969 in Madison, Wisconsin. She began writing short stories and plays at the age of six, utilizing her father's old manual typewriter and building her finger strength for the work yet to come.

During her teens and twenties, Mary broadened her interests to writing poetry, creating visual art, playing and composing music, and reading voraciously. Works by such literary greats as Camus, Balzac, Solzhenitsyn, Mann, Dostoevsky, Salinger, and Atwood as well as poets, playwrights and philosophers significantly influenced her intellectual development and understanding of literature, culture, politics, history, and the human condition.

Photo by Angela Morgan

Mary moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1990, assembling a staggeringly varied resume to support her creative work, including sous chef, waitron, receptionist, hairstylist, language study abroad program coordinator, information director, copywriter, editor, webmaster, genealogical researcher, marketing manager, and communications coordinator. She also managed to squeeze in study of Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, expanding her knowledge of literature from around the world.

In partnership with her husband and fellow artist, Kevin Dally-Muenzmaier, Mary launched Cerebral Bends Productions in 2003, an arts production and creative services company that encompasses numerous artistic and commercial endeavors. Five years later she launched CricketToes, an art and culture blog focused primarily on Milwaukee and the State of Wisconsin, featuring news and event previews as well as artist, organization and project profiles.

Photo by Angela Morgan

After writing poetry exclusively for over a decade, Mary decided to return to fiction in the late 1990s, trying her hand at short stories and vignettes. These experimentations gave her the confidence to tackle a longer narrative form and she published her debut novel Artifacts in September of 2011.

Mary is a practitioner of Hatha-Vinyasa yoga, which plays an important role within the plot of Artifacts.






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