Mary Beath

Mary Beath

Mary Beath works at the confluence of science, art, and nature. After she earned degrees in zoology (Duke) and printmaking (Rhode Island School of Design), she lived for ten years in New York’s East Village. In 1989 she moved to Albuquerque where she is the proprietor of an award-winning illustration/design/writing studio focused on projects that concern the natural world. She began writing seriously in the early 1990s. Her poetry collection,Refuge of Whirling Light (University of New Mexico Press 2005) won the Wrangler Award and was a finalist for a WILLA Award and a Spur Award. Her book of personal essays, Hiking Alone: Trails Out, Trails Home (UNM Press 2008) won the Chair Award/Zia Award. She has also taught in UNM’s Honors Program. For some years she’s been working on a novel set during the start of the 2007 uranium mining boom in southwestern Colorado.