Mary Saracino
author of
The Singing of Swans
October 2006
2007 Lambda Literary Awards finalist

    color low res photo  |  300 dpi b&w photo

Click here to listen to or download a 53-minute Conversation with Mary Saracino about The Singing of Swans & related topics.

Click here to listen to or download Mary's interview (with co-editor Mary Beth Moser) about their She Is Everywhere! (Vol. 3) anthology of writings on womanist/feminist spirituality on
the Voices of Women radio show.

The Singing of Swans PDF Media Kit
(contains book flyers with blurbs, full author info, Story Angles, Interview Questions, Book Group Guide & excerpt in one 17-page PDF. The individual documents are available below)

Mary Saracino Author Information | Mary Saracino website | Mary Saracino's Red Room page

The following PDFs contain all the information in the "Mary Saracino Author Information" PDF plus additional book-related information pertinent to specific regions:

The Singing of Swans & Author Info forDenver/Colorado

The Singing of Swans & Author Info for Minneapolis/St. Paul/Minnesota

The Singing of Swans & Author Info for New York State & New York City

The Singing of Swans & Author Info for Bay Area in California

The Singing of Swans Story Angles | The Singing of Swans Interview Questions
The Singing of Swans Book Group Guide | Excerpt from The Singing of Swans 
Pearlsong Press blog posts about Mary Saracino

FAST FACTS about MARY SARACINO & The Singing of Swans by AREA:

Denver/Colorado area | Minneapolis/St. Paul/Minnesota area
Western New York state & New York City area | Bay Area in California

For the Denver/Colorado area:

Mary lives in Denver |Teaches creative writing classes | Worked as a writing tutor at the Community College of Denver from January 2003-December 2005 | Teaches workshops on the Divine Feminine: "Reclaiming Our Mother" & "Ancient Images/Modern Icons" (a hands-on art history/ceramic studio workshop sponsored by the Art Students League of Denver) 

Her three previous books (No Matter What, Finding Grace, & Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior) were reviewed by the Rocky Mountain News.

Did a book reading for Finding Grace at the renowned independent bookstore The Tattered Cover.

For the Mineapolis/St.Paul/Minnesota area:

The main character (Madalene Ross) in The Singing of Swans lives in Minneapolis.

Mary lived in the Twin Cities area for 30 years before moving to Denver in 1997.

Mary graduated from North St. Paul High School, North St. Paul, MN and The College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, MN (BA in English, 1976). She attended graduate school at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in the M.A. program in American Studies from 1979-1981, where she began formal studies of women's spirituality and comparative religion.

No Matter What (Mary's first novel) was a 1994 fiction finalist for the Minnesota Book Award.

Mary was accepted into the 1991-1992 Loft Mentor Series program, where she was mentored by visiting, nationally known fiction writers and poets and participated in a reading of her work in progress.

Mary was twice awarded a writing residency at Norcroft: A Writing Retreat for Women in Lutsen, MN.

Mary was interviewed by:
 Mary Ann Grossman (books editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press) for Finding Grace.
 Minnesota Women's Press 
for Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior.
Public Radio/Wisconsin's Jean Feraca ("Conversations with Jean Feraca")
for Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior.
"Write on Radio," KFAI (independent public radio station)
for Finding Grace & Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior.

For western NY State & NY City area:

The main character in The Singing of Swans is Italian American.

Mary was born in Seneca Falls, NY (western NY, Finger Lakes region) and lived there until she was 13.

Mary is the daughter of first-generation Italian immigrants. She was raised Catholic and attended St. Patrick's Parochial School in Seneca Falls, NY. Her father and three of her four brothers currently live in western NY.

She was guest speaker at Nancy Caronia's writing class, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ for Finding Grace.

Guest speaker at Edvige Giunta's memoir writing class, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ for Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior.

Reading, 2003 American Italian Historical Association (AIHA) annual conference, Hunter College, New York, NY.

Reading from No Matter What, 1998 AIHA conference evening showcase of writers.

For the Bay Area in California:

The Singing of Swans focuses on the Divine Feminine.

Mary took part in two Dark Mother study tours (2001 to Sicily, 2004 to Sargegna) led by Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, professor in the Women's Studies program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. The 2001 Dark Mother Study Tour to Sicily greatly influenced the subject matter of The Singing of Swans.

Spring 2002 guest speaker at Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum's class on the Dark Mother at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA.

Mary has been an independent scholar of the Divine Feminine since 1976. Mary teaches workshops on the Divine Feminine in the Denver metro area.