description website birth_place nationality embed spouse filename image article_title education name type occupation
recorded july 2014 module = -lcb- -lcb- listen indianapolis , indiana american yes angus wright mary mackey voice.flac mary mackey.jpg mary mackey
 harvard phd -rrb- college -lrb- ba -rrb- university of michigan -lrb- mary mackey speech poet novelist
mary mackey

mary mackey is an american novelist , poet , and academic .
she is the author of seven collections of poetry and thirteen novels , including the `` new york times '' best-seller `` a grand passion '' and `` the year the horses came '' , `` the horses at the gate '' , and `` the fires of spring '' , three sweeping historical novels that take as their subject the earth-centered , goddess-worshiping cultures of neolithic europe .
in 2012 , her sixth collection of poetry , `` sugar zone '' , won a pen oakland/josephine miles literary award .
her first novel , `` immersion '' -lrb- shameless hussy press , 1972 -rrb- , was the first novel published by a second wave feminist press .
long concerned with environmental issues , mackey frequently writes about the rainforests of costa rica and the brazilian amazon .
in the early 1970s , as professor of english and writer-in-residence at california state university , sacramento , she was instrumental in the founding of the csus women 's studies program and the csus english department graduate creative writing program .
from 1989-1992 , she served as president of the west coast branch of pen american center involving herself in pen 's international defense of persecuted writers .
