Mary Soderstrom is a Montreal-based writer of fiction and non-fiction whose most recent book--her 19th--Before We Forget: How Remembering Will Get Us Through the Next 75 Years was published by Dundurn Press in March 2026. It follows in the footsteps of Against the Seas: Saving Civilizations from Rising Waters (Dundurn, 2023) and Concrete: From Ancient Origins to a Problematic Future {October 2020. University of Regina Press.}
In 2019 the UofRegina Press published her Frenemy Nations: Love and Hate between Neighbo(u)ring States which is an examination of why ten pairs of political entities--ranging from the formerly two Vietnams, through Haiti and the Dominican Republic and Vermont and New Hampshire to the US and Canada--are so similar in some respects, yet so different.
As Katia Grubisic writes about it in the Montreal Review of Books: "Soderstrom is interesting because she is interested... Her frequent asides – musings on language, geology, genetics, twins, what have you – are sharp and illuminating, sparking reflection and lightening the informational load."
Her Road through Time: The Story of Humanity on the Move (University of Regina Press) was published in 2017 to laudatory reviews in Quill & Quire, Publishers' Weekly and The Library Journal which called it "a must-read for all interested in society, past and present."
Her most recent work of fiction is River Music, a novel published by Cormorant Book in May 2015. In fall 2013 Oberon Press brought out her collection of short stories, Desire Lines: Stories of Love and Geography. Her last non-fiction book was Making Waves: The Continuing Portuguese Adventure (Véhicule Press, 2010) . Cormorant published her novel The Violets of Usambara in 2008. About a Canadian politician who is kidnapped in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, it is particularly relevant now in an era of terrorism around the world.
And for nearly a decade she has maintained an eclectic chronicle about politics, nature, cities and life, Recreating Eden (http://marysoderstrom.blogspot.com)