MARY C. RYAN                Books for young readers 

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

Welcome to my web. No, I'm not a spider like Charlotte, although like her, I have been a writer for most of my life. As a kid, I was often the despair of my mother, who constantly begged me to get my nose out of a book and “do something.” It took a while, but I eventually found a way to combine the two--as neighborhood playwright, school newspaper scribe, reporter, columnist, freelancer and author.

I grew up in Buffalo, NY. While in high school, I won awards for fiction and essays in state and regional competitions. After obtaining a B.S. in Education, I worked as a school librarian and fourth grade teacher for a few years, then married and began raising our family of six children.. For a while, as you can imagine, there wasn't much time to write anything.

But the muse wasn't finished with me. A confessed night owl, I began staying up late, banging away at an old manual typewriter while the rest of the family slept. Or tried to. I took a job as a correspondent news reporter and continued to write other material on the side. Eventually, the tide turned.

My first paid freelance piece was a poem in the Wall Street Journal, for the fabulous sum of $5. I never actually saw my poem in print, but it was a pretty prestigious publication. I eventually went on to write articles and fiction and then went on to books. Three of my middle grade novels were listed as Junior Library Guild selections. Frankie's Run and Me Two were nominated for several state Young Reader awards. What I consider the highlight of my career, however, was when the Disney Channel made an Original TV Movie, The Other Me, from my novel Me Two. It premiered in 2000. I call it "my millennium miracle."

I currently live in Northeast Ohio, although the rest of the family is spread all over the U.S. (And the airlines are happy about that!)

I can often still be found with my nose in a book, digital or otherwise.



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SPRINGTIME IN IRELAND

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