Marylee MacDonald

Marylee MacDonald grew up in Redwood City, California and wanted to be a "lady" wrestler or skate for the Bay Area Bombers, a Roller Derby team. While her children were young, she worked as a carpenter in California and Illinois. Later, she wrote how-to articles for Old-House Journal, Carpenter, and Journal of Light Construction.

Her short stories have won the Jeanne Leiby Chapbook Award, the Barry Hannah Prize, the Ron Rash Award, the Matt Clark Prize, and the ALR Fiction Award. She is widely published in literary magazines such as American Literary Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Folio, Blue Moon Literary & Art Review, Broad River Review, Folio, Four Quarters, New Delta Review, North Atlantic Review, Raven Chronicles, Reunion: The Dallas Review, River Oak Review, Ruminate, StoryQuarterly, The Briar Cliff Review, Yalobusha Review, and the anthologies ROLL and NEW SUN RISING: Stories for Japan.

Her debut novel, MONTPELIER TOMORROW, was published in 2014 by All Things That Matter Press and was a Gold Medal winner in the Drama category for Readers Favorites 2015 Awards. The book was also a finalist for the 2015 Next Generation Indie Awards and the 2015 Eric Hoffer Award. She has been a Writing Fellow at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, taught writing for River Oak Arts and the Desert Nights, Rising Stars writing conference, and received a Fellowship in Fiction from the Illinois Arts Council.