Mary Ward Brown was a nationally recognized author of short stories set in the South. Born June 18, 1917, in Hamburg, Alabama, to Thomas and Mary Ward, she grew up on her family’s farm. She studied English and Journalism at Judson College in Marion, Alabama, from which she graduated with an A.B. in 1938. After serving briefly as Judson College’s publicity director, she married Kirtley Brown in 1939 and moved to Auburn, Alabama, where her husband worked for Auburn University, and where she had her only child, Kirtley Ward Brown. The Browns moved back to Hamburg in the mid-1940s, after Mary’s father died, and settled on her parents’ farm.

From a young age, Mary Ward Brown had been interested in writing, and she published afew short stories in the 1950s. Her work as a wife and mother left her little time for writing, however, until after her husband’s death in 1970. After resuming her writing career, she published short stories in literary journals, and published her first collection of short stories, Tongues of Flame, in 1986. Another collection of stories, It Wasn’t All Dancing, followed in 2002, and a memoir, Fanning the Spark, in 2009. Brown’s stories won wide acclaim, and she was the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award from PEN New England, the Alabama Author Award from the Alabama Library Association (twice), the Harper Lee Award from the Alabama Writers Forum, and the Hillsdale Fiction Prize from the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

Brown died in Marion, Alabama on May 14, 2013.