Gray Folks

About the Book

"Gray Folks": Earth and Beyond is a humorous look at how aliens and life an on earth may interact. It is sure to bring laughter to the reader.

About the Author

Mary started writing short stories in the 4th grade. She read them to classmates, teachers, and family to entertain them.

While in Monroe Jr. High, Mary became involved with the school newspaper. She also had published several articles in the Benson Sun Newspaper .

Mary continued to write short stories through her life, always being interested in adventure, murder mysteries, science fiction, and the supernatural. It was in Monroe Jr. High School that she fully developed the Hard Luck Fred cartoon.

In Benson High School, Mary took journalism and creative writing classes. However, with journalism jobs being scarce in Omaha, she decided to major in accounting in college, so as to find employment quickly.

Once in college, which eventually evolved into Nebraska College of Business, Mary became involved with the school newspaper. Hard Luck Fred became a regular feature. Mary also had a business column, giving facts about local companies and entrepreneurs.

Once out of college, Mary had to accept all employment that was available, for there were few choices in the job market due to the poor economy. Eventually, she had the opportunity to work at Mutual of Omaha and United of Omaha insurance companies in their accounting departments.

However, writing stayed in Mary's veins; so she returned to writing short stories and novelettes while holding down a full time job. She also added children's stories to her skills. In the 1980s, she self-published The Knight Who Ran .

It was at Mutual of Omaha that she became good friends with Bob Vranes. Through Bob, she met his son, R.J. "Bobby" Vranes.

When R.J. Vranes became interested in directing, editing, and producing films, he asked Mary if he could use her short story, The Telephone . He turned it into a winner in a local television channel's contest.

R.J. Vranes then asked Mary to help develop the story, The Budahman , which was based on Rex "Lou" Moulton's idea. Adding some of Mary's ideas to the film script, The Budahman became created and filmed in 2003.

Mary has had several short stories printed in the Echoes Magazines , The Mothership Chronicles , and The Planet 'Zine . Currently, Mary has stories on www.firstprint.com. She also has a regular cartoon series, "Gray Folks," which appears in The Mothership Chronicles .

As a Doc Savage fan, Mary contributes to The Bronze Gazette . Lester Dent, aka. Kenneth Robeson, was her inspiration for writing.