WHO BY FIRE: A Novel - Softcover

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Mary L. Tabor is an award-winning writer known for her lyrical prose, narrative daring, and deep emotional intelligence. Her work spans fiction, memoir, and personal essay, often exploring the liminal spaces between love and loss, memory and reinvention, silence and revelation. With a voice as precise as it is poetic, she invites readers into the quietest corners of the human heart.

A late-blooming literary force, Tabor published her debut story collection, The Woman Who Never Cooked, to critical acclaim after a distinguished career in journalism, corporate communications, and motherhood. Her memoir, (Re)Making Love: A Memoir, earned praise for its unflinching candor and literary elegance, charting her midlife transformation with both vulnerability and insight.

Her novel Who By Fire—now reissued by Empress Editions—is widely regarded as her most ambitious work to date. Lauded by Pulitzer Prize winners and literary critics alike, it showcases Tabor’s gift for layered structure and emotional resonance. Pulitzer finalist Lee Martin called it “a lyric meditation on love and desire,” while International Herald Tribune’s Michael Johnson declared it work that “ranks her alongside the finest novelists working today.”

Tabor holds an MFA from The Ohio State University, where she taught creative writing and received the university's Distinguished Teaching Award. Her essays and short stories have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Sun, Narrative Magazine, Catapult, and more. She has also been a frequent guest on NPR affiliates and literary podcasts, speaking about the intersections of writing, reinvention, and the female voice in midlife and beyond.

She lives and writes in Washington, D.C., and remains a passionate advocate for the power of storytelling at every age. In addition to her writing and teaching, Tabor collaborates with Empress Editions on bespoke reader experiences and literary media that extend the life of a story beyond the page.