Devastation on the Delaware: Stories And Images of the Deadly Flood of 1955

In 1961, Mary Shafer was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to a family of writers. When she was almost 7, her family moved to Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, a Milwaukee suburb. Growing up there, she was encouraged to pursue interests in writing and art.In high school, Mary worked as a reporter, feature writer, cartoonist and layout editor for her high school newspaper, The Olympian Voice. She later returned to newspaper as a graphic artist for a number of small weeklies in and around Milwaukee, before opening her own design studio, The Art Emporium.She attended the University of Wisconsin campuses at Stout and Milwaukee, and holds an Associate of Science degree in Commercial Art and Communications from Milwaukee Area Technical College. She carried minor studies in history and English composition.While making her primary living as a graphic designer, she also wrote freelance reviews of films, books and bed & breakfasts for alternative publications nationwide. In 1991, Mary resigned her post as art director for NorthWord Press in Minocqua, Wisconsin to freelance and to make writing a more substantial pursuit. She delved into the research and writing of her first historical nonfiction book, Wisconsin: The Way We Were. It was published by Heartland Press in August, 1993.After a year of working to help develop a new nature publishing house, Lost River Press, Mary returned to Milwaukee in late 1993. There she resumed her freelance writing and design work, and taught commercial art courses at her alma mater, Milwaukee Area Technical College, from 1994 to 1996. Returning to her home state in early 1997, she returned to freelancing. From 1999 to 2001, Mary ran a small, construction-specific advertising and marketing agency in Lambertville, New Jersey.She left to pursue writing full time, and now runs The Word Forge, a full-service communications firm in Ferndale, Pennsylvania. She specializes in the topics of light construction and related fields, history, weather and emergency management/disaster preparedness. Mary also teaches writing and drawing in adult evening classes at the Community Schools of New Hope-Solebury and in the Palisades School District.Mary’s second book, Rural America: A Pictorial Folk Memory, was released in July, 1995 by Willow Creek Press. The book won a 1995 Best Book Award from the Mid-America Publishers Association.Mary has edited more than thirty trade titles, and her work has appeared in the anthology A Place To Which We Belong, published by 1000 Friends of Wisconsin to commemorate the state’s sesquicentenary in 1998. The same year, her essay "A Reluctant Maturity" garnered an Honorable Mention in the Potomac Review's Annual Short Story/Essay Contest.Mary's latest book, Devastation on the Delaware: Stories and Images of the Deadly Flood of 1955 is a narrative nonfiction documentary about the record-setting flood of August, 1955 in the Delaware Valley. The book’s anticipated publication date is October, 2005. Mary is also working on her first novel, Lonely Cottage Road, a historical drama centered around actual locations near her home in upper Bucks County, Pennsylvania.Mary is a member of the National Writers Union, The Writers Room of Bucks County, the Civil War Preservation Trust, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Women’s History Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Bucks County Historical Society. She is a certified SkyWarn Weather Spotter and a volunteer with the Nockamixon Township Emergency Management Agency.