Mary Morrell

Mary is a story-teller, a gift she inherited from her Irish father. She also inherited his fascination with the mystical side of life, especially the mystery of the human heart and spirit. Born in Albany, New York, Mary developed a passion for what's "beneath the surface" while walking the trails of Thatcher Park in the Helderberg Escarpment and digging for fossils and quartz crystals with her dad. What she's discovered over the years is the divine potential of the human person. Mary's life-long passion for writing, which was encouraged from a very young age with a steady supply of blank paper and Nancy Drew books by her Syrian mom, took a more serious turn when Franciscan Father Peter Fiore handed her back a college short story assignment with a comment in the margin: "You are a writer!!" Today, Mary is an award-winning writer and syndicated columnist, who has worked as a journalist, editor, educator, waitress, encyclopedia salesperson and Avon rep. She is part of a team of transcribers who recently completed the transcriptions of Dorothy Day’s 6,800 page diary and 500 of her most historically significant letters. Her most rewarding vocation has been as mom to six sons, all born and raised in New Jersey where she lives with her husband of 46 years.