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Mary Volmer

Goodreads Author

Born

in Grass Valley, CA, The United States

Website

http://www.maryvolmer.com

Twitter

maryvolmer

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fiction

Influences

Elizabeth Strout, Edith Wharton, Karen Joy fowler, Ursula Le Guin, Wal ...more

Member Since

June 2007

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I grew up ten miles outside of Grass Valley, California, a Sierra Nevada foothill town in the heart of Gold Country. Dad taught high school Special Ed. Mom was a librarian, a second grade and then a middle school English teacher, so most of my early memories feature blackboards, books, dusty, deserted playgrounds, and bigger kids who were mostly tolerant and kind, in a dismissive sort of way. I adored them all but idolized Jean, a freckled blond girl in my older brother’s class.

Jean was bigger than most of the boys, faster too, and her knees were branded with the most exquisite bruises I’d ever seen. Jean taught me how to dribble a basketball, how to elbow my way into games, how to play through bloody noses, how to go get the ball when the I grew up ten miles outside of Grass Valley, California, a Sierra Nevada foothill town in the heart of Gold Country. Dad taught high school Special Ed. Mom was a librarian, a second grade and then a middle school English teacher, so most of my early memories feature blackboards, books, dusty, deserted playgrounds, and bigger kids who were mostly tolerant and kind, in a dismissive sort of way. I adored them all but idolized Jean, a freckled blond girl in my older brother’s class.

Jean was bigger than most of the boys, faster too, and her knees were branded with the most exquisite bruises I’d ever seen. Jean taught me how to dribble a basketball, how to elbow my way into games, how to play through bloody noses, how to go get the ball when the boys wouldn’t pass to me. I wanted to be Jean, but any playground respect I might have earned as her understudy was undercut by the fact I was a teacher’s kid, and a crier, and too eager to please for my own good. It also didn’t help that I loved to play make believe with another, distinctly uncool faction of kids who became my lasting friends.

Although I eventually grew to love reading, I never imagined I’d write books. At ten I dreamed of two things. Playing NBA basketball with Magic Johnson, and singing in Star Makers! a junior high song and dance troupe complete with sequined leotards and tap shoes. One of these dreams came true, but I have burned all video evidence. I did some success on the basketball court. At any rate I was good to earn a scholarship to play at Saint Mary’s, a small, division one college on the west coast. We won a lot, which was great, but I was undersized and rarely played, which wasn’t great. It also became clear in my wretched first year, that I was not cut out to be a pre-med student. (I thought athletes were competitive!) After fumbling around a few semesters I found a home with English majors, many of whom also wrote squalid little poems and stories in beat up notebooks, and what’s more, admitted to doing so.

After college I studied writing on a Rotary Scholarship at the University of Aberystwyth, Wales. Here, with the confidence of a novice, I decided to write a novel, and set about it with an athlete’s bullheaded determination, blocking out time and showing up each day whether I felt like it or not. In fiction, I found a medium appropriate for the outsized emotions that had always plagued me. The best thing about books—writing or reading them—is that you’re invited to feel and think deeply with, and for, other people. Even people who never existed, or lived hundreds of years before you. I also tried my hand at acting in Wales but my first role, as a mad lawyer in the Duchess of Malfi, was also my last. The whole venture felt too much like sports, with a coach or casting director determining whether I would get to play. Editors, those literary gate keepers, can say no, but they can never stop you from writing.

Probably my folks imagined I’d go away for a year and get this writing thing out my system. Instead I returned to attend my alma mater for an MFA. A year later my first novel, CROWN OF DUST, was published. Now after marriage, my first full time job, and a baby, and a few spectacular failures, my second novel—RELIANCE, ILLINOIS—has finally endured that treacherous sophomore road to existence. I’m working on a third.
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Mary Volmer’s books

Average rating: 3.59 · 459 ratings · 112 reviews · 3 distinct works • Similar authors

	Reliance, Illinois 3.54 avg rating — 267 ratings — published 2016 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Crown of Dust 3.66 avg rating — 192 ratings — published 2006 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Untitled Volmer Novel 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Mary Volmer's Blog

A Personal History of Sport: Personal Essay Class

Join me for A PERSONAL HISTORY OF SPORT

Dates: 4 Wednesdays, September 21 - October 12
Time: 6 - 8 pm PST
Instructor: Mary Volmer
Format: ZOOM

Genre: Nonfiction (Fiction Writers and Poets Welcome!)

Price: $275

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Sports are a vital part of western culture, yet we rarely reflect upon, much less write about, how sports have influenced our lives, our families, or our communities. Read more of this blog post »

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Hashtag Good Guy With a Gun

by Jeff Chon (Goodreads Author)

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Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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People of the Whale

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Quotes by Mary Volmer (?)

“Look around you. Look back. This is what I want to tell my daughters, the message I wish to leave behind. Be grateful, but not too grateful for fragments of the rights due all persons. Remember, justice and change comes hard and slow. Remember, you will have many mothers in this life besides me, all of them flawed. Judge them, judge me, but not too harshly. Carry on, my girls, but guard yourself against the irrational defeats that may yet come.”
― Mary Volmer, Reliance, Illinois

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“There's no money in poetry, but there's no poetry in money, either.”
― Robert Graves

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“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

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“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

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“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

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“Everything you're sure is right can be wrong in another place.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

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message 1: by Rashaan

Jun 11, 2008 04:59PM

Hooray for Mary & books! So glad to connect with you on goodreads. I have to recommend again that you get your author page up and running. Do it for your adoring fans, like me!

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Mary Volmer’s Followers (82)

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