Mary B. is a former teacher turned archivist. She moonlights as a writer and editor, and hails from Jackson, Mississippi. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Mississippi and an M.F.A. in Fiction from Louisiana State University. Upon graduating from LSU, she moved to Seattle, WA, for two years to teach, dog-walk, and freelance as a fact-checker for a publishing company, before moving back home again to tell her grandfather, John McIntyre, goodbye. During COVID, she put her teaching career on brief hiatus for six months and assisted the National Guard in delivering vaccines to facilities throughout the state. She then served as the Fourth-Grade instructional assistant for two years, before taking time off to write another failed novel. She re-entered the teaching force once more and took a teaching position as a humanities afterschool care instructor for 4th and 5th graders; it was in this role that she had the impetus for Libre, the mental health literature and arts magazine she now owns and operates. Upon acceptance into Belhaven University’s MAT program to study for her teaching license, she took more time off to take classes and write. During the Fall of 2024, she took and passed the PRAXIS in Art Content, before dovetailing into an entirely new career in local government as a Cultural Resources Specialist. In her free-time, she coexists with her cat, Blue, whom she mostly lovingly refers to as her “Teenage Son”, while operating behind-the-scenes as Libre’s editor-in-chief.

When pressed, she refers to mental health advocacy as her Earthly calling.