Mary Rickert

Before earning her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, Mary Rickert worked as kindergarten teacher, coffee shop barista, Disneyland balloon vendor and personnel assistant at Sequoia National Park. She now lives in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, a small city of candy shops and beautiful gardens.

She has published numerous short stories and two collections: Map of Dreams, which won the World Fantasy and Crawford Awards, and Holiday, which contains her World Fantasy Award winning short story, "Journey into the Kingdom." She also won a Shirley Jackson Award for her story, "The Corpse Painter's Masterpiece." The Memory Garden is her first novel.