Jenn Shapland is a writer and archivist living in New Mexico. Her first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Lambda Literary award. She has a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently working on a collection of essays about the entanglement of toxicity, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy called Thin Skin.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.

Jenn Shapland selected Silent Spring by Rachel Carson for her episode of Without These Books.

Marilyn Peterson Haus learned to read and write in a one-room school set in the midst of a sea of corn, and then rode a rickety yellow school bus seven miles to the nearest town (population 700) for middle and high school. Everything was oriented around the railroad that sliced through the tallgrass prairie, heading west. 

Marilyn’s own journey took her in the opposite direction, and after attending Augsburg College (now Augsburg University) in Minneapolis, she and her husband moved east and settled in western Massachusetts, where she raised three children, earned an MBA and launched a successful business career. After retiring from her day job, Marilyn followed her dream to become a writer, began attending a weekly writer’s workshop, and over the course of ten years, wrote and completed Half a Whole – her first book. 

When she isn’t writing, Marilyn can be found shoveling compost around the coneflowers, hostas, and day lilies that overflow her many flower gardens.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.

Marilyn Peterson Haus selected I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb for her episode of Without These Books.

Mary Dixie Carter’s debut novel The Photographer will be published in May 2021 by Minotaur Books - St. Martin’s Publishing Group in the US and by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK.

Mary Dixie’s writing has appeared in TIME,  The Economist, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer,  The New York Sun, The New York Observer and other print and online publications.  She worked at The Observer for five years, where she served as the publishing director.  In addition to writing, she also has a background as a professional actor. 

Mary Dixie graduated from Harvard College with an honors degree in English Literature and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School.  She is the daughter of Dixie Carter and step-daughter of Hal Holbrook. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two young children. The Photographer is her first novel.

Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired video/podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.

Mary Dixie Carter selected The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton for her episode of Without These Books.