Mary Marks became an award-winning quilter after an early retirement from her job in administration on the campus of the University of California Los Angeles. After twelve years of sewing twenty four/seven, she came up for a breath and started writing about some of the nearly one hundred quilts she’d created.

Then the writing bug bit her. She was off to the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program for classes. A love of reading mysteries led her to take a four-day mystery writing workshop where she discovered a new creative passion.

Her first novel, FORGET ME KNOT, was a finalist in the Malice Domestic Competition of 2011. Out of that success came the Martha Rose quilting mystery series.

In addition to her own writing, Mary reviews cozy mysteries for New York Journal of Books online.

Mary was born in Los Angeles and grew up in L.A. and the San Francisco Bay Area. She moved back to Southern California to attend UCLA and earned a BA in Anthropology. The next years were spent raising three children. She enrolled in the American Jewish University in L.A. and earned an MA in Public Administration and Management.

She held administrative positions at UCLA until a physical condition stemming from a bout with childhood polio forced her into early retirement. She moved to Israel for a year and returned to L.A. to start her adventures in quilting and murder.