Mary E. Mitchell is author of the novel, Starting Out Sideways, a 2007 Thomas Dunne Book from St. Martin's Press.  New York Times best-selling author, Elizabeth Berg, says of this debut novel, "... there is a humanity exhumed in this book that makes you feel proud and hopeful about being a human on planet Earth.  These days, that's a rare and wonderful thing."

Mary's next novel, Americans in Space, was published by St. Martin’s Press in fall 2009, and will be coming out in paperback under the title Love in Complete Sentences on November 23, 2010.  As in Starting Out Sideways, Love in Complete Sentences follows Mitchell’s recipe of one part poignancy, one part humor.  Leah Hager Cohen, New York Times book reviewer and author most recently of House Lights, describes Mary's fiction this way: "I don't know when I've read a book whose protagonist is as beset by heartache and worries ... and yet manages to deliver such mirth and comfort.  Mary E. Mitchell knows how to laugh at problems without minimizing them, and how to honor hard times without losing sight of a brighter picture."

Mary E. Mitchell also has published non-fiction and essays in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, literary journals The Writing Self and Contrary Magazine, Family Circle and First for Women.  She is a recipient of the New England PEN Discovery award for her novel, The Nearness of You, and a two-time alumna of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.  For years she has taught writing at Bethany Hill School, a living and learning community in Framingham, Massachusetts.  She lives in the Boston area with her husband.