SALT LAKE CITY, November 12, 2018
During a sweltering hot summer, daydreaming about her next novel, author Mary Howard decided to isolate two new characters, Maggie and Ian — strangers to one another — in a remote location during a days-long blizzard.
Maggie, the main character, would be a painter. Ian, a violinist. Spirited and hot-blooded, both would be struggling with the fallout of past moral failures, possibly even crimes. The reader would fear for Maggie from the start, but she would see Ian as a sexy easygoing guy who could offer her comfort, respite from her guilty conscience.
The end result is a thrilling novel called “Whiteout,” that Howard submitted to WiDo Publishing.™ Managing Editor for WiDo and E.L. Marker, Karen Gowen, had this to say about the manuscript: “Mary did a fantastic job of setting the scene. I got pulled in immediately to Maggie’s situation, couldn’t stop reading. Even the ‘quiet scenes’ are rich with just the right detail, giving one the sense of impending doom without giving away secrets.”
The author wrote parts of “Whiteout” during a Residency at The Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest, Illinois. Then in 2016, Howard was named Midwest Writing Center’s Writer of the Year and awarded a week-long writing residency at a retreat center in Rock Island, Illinois. At that retreat, she worked on early chapters of her current work-in-progress, a suspenseful literary novel about how a shocking chance event alters the life of a family for three generations.
Mary Howard writes three or four hours a day, at least four days a week, spending some of that time on research. She also produces a local radio show, Community Bookshelf; mentors a college student; and, until recently, chaired the local Public Art Commission. She likes to read novels that are beautifully written and captivating, with character-driven plots. She also enjoys non-fiction.
Howard found WiDo in her search for independent publishers. “I read Pieces by John von Daler and enjoyed it immensely. It has a beautiful cover, too!” she states. “As a sample of WiDo’s publications, it encouraged me to submit ‘Whiteout’ to them.”
Mary’s resume is quite impressive,” Gowen says, “and she writes beautifully. We’re honored to have her join the WiDo Family of Publishers.”
Mary Howard earned an M.A. in English/Creative Writing at Iowa State University and then taught in the Department for three years. Her novel, Discovering the Body, was published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins. She has published short stories in The Georgia Review, The Ontario Review and Intro 11. She won Ms. Magazine’s Fiction Contest, resulting in the publication of the winning short story, “Father Me, Father Me Not.” Mary currently lives in Ames, Iowa with her husband Bob.