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Mary Hays

Profile picture for Mary Hays

Contact Information

248 English Building
608 S Wright, M/C 718
Urbana, IL 61801

Office Hours

By appointment. Please email.
Senior Lecturer

Research Interests

Creative Writing (Poetry, Short Stories, Creative Non-Fiction)

Education

  • MFA in Fiction at Murray State University
  • MA in Poetry and Fiction at The City College of New York

selected publications

I'm grateful to the following journals that have published my work.

Stories

  • "The Sanctity of Snow" appeared in Coal City Review in 2019 and was nominated for an O. Henry Award. Two poems appeared in the same issue. See Poetry, below.
  • "Milk Fever" was published in Another Chicago Magazine in issue 56.
  • Passagers published "Where You Go I Will Go" in their 2018 issue.
  • "Hannah: Six Months Later" was published in Every Day Fiction on October 15, 2017
  • "Tribute in Black, White, and Grey" won first prize for fiction in Sixfold. It was published in their Summer, 2017 issue.
  • “A Woman Is Wearing Her Prettiest Dress” in Quiddity, Volume 10, 2017.
  • “The Sidewinder and the Buffalo Child” anthologized in Chasing Magic May, 2017.
  • Every Day Fiction featured “Maybe in a Tornado” on February 25, 2017 and "The Bird's Nest" on May 30, 2017.
  • "Encounter" published in the Winter, 2015 issue of Broad! a gentleperson’s magazine(Find it on page 59.)
  • Horse Dreams” published in Short Fiction Break, August 13, 2015.
  • Coal City Review published “Spyder, Spyder, Burning Bright” in April, 1993.
    • These stories are from my book, Ruth Harris: Under the Prairie Moon, currently making the rounds of small press publishers.
  • Backyard Poultry Magazine published:
    • “Fresh Eggs: Like the Hobbit’s Riddle” in December 2012/January 2013.
    • “Michael and the Turkish Heritage Chicks” in October/November 2009.
    • “The Tale of the Quail and Dixie, the Accidental Bunny” in April/May, 2007.
  • In 1998,  Another Chicago Magazine, Number 34  published “Point of Reference.”

Book Reviews

  • My Review of Without Leave by Deborah Fleming appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of New Madrid Journal of Contemporary Literature. You can find it on page 136.

Poetry

  • Coal City Review "Dylan at the Beat Museum" and "Tippet Hill."
  • 2019 Peninsula Pulse “Snow Route” (Honorable Mention, Poetry Contest)
  • 2001 The Mid-America Poetry Review “Ghost Lilies”
  • Spring, 2001 Blue Violin “hilar adenopathy”
  • Spring, 2000 Coal City Review “Freud Says my Dreams about Losing Teeth are Sexual”
  • 1992 “To an Ex-lover and D. H. Lawrence”
  • 1990 Prairie Free Press “The Lord’s Prayer”
  • 1989 Aphra “For V. Woolf”

Weekly Column

  • News Gazette Family Newspapers “Letter From Birdland” March, 2008-Present

links