Jul 22

Jul 22 Mari Collier

Author Mari Collier

Biography

I loved to make up stories, read, and disappear into my own world from the time I remember. Not that that was always possible on a farm on Southwest Iowa where there was no electricity and no inside bathroom. There was always farm work, but my parents made time for fishing, for meetings with the local Farm Bureau, church at least twice a month, sometimes a special dance in which my oldest brother was the lead guitar player and singer.

At the age of twelve my mother let me take over writing the weekly township column for the local newspaper. The pay? Three cents a line for visiting and four cents a line for birthday parties and wedding or bridal news. It was exciting and heady. Then allergies hit with full force. The only reason I graduated from eighth grade at the age of thirteen was the essay tests that all the country one room schoolhouse children had to take.

That summer and fall they hit again to the point where I couldn’t eat, sleep, or breathe correctly. One doctor did try the new allergy shots. The shots, however, had been tested on grown men much taller and heavier than I was. He suggested the only thing left was exploratory brain surgery at the University of Iowa. The next doctor suggested Mama institutionalize me in a mental hospital, and the last one suggested Mama take me home and let me die.

Mama, being a Christian, went down on her knees and prayed for an answer. She stood up and announced to my father, “I am taking her West.”

It is too long a tale to tell why we stayed in Phoenix, but that wonderful desert cleared my head, my infections and the bronchial tubes. I finished high school, married my high school sweetheart, and we purchased a home. Then two children arrived. I made up stories for them and sold one to Jack and Jill. By that time we had a new home on an acre and horses. I wanted a car, but would have to work for one. One story doesn’t buy a car.

The children were old enough to stay by themselves. I found a job and discovered men made far more. Yes, I proved I could collect in the rough places just as well as a man and the pay was four hundred a month more. That was the first time I had used a computer. I knew the U. S. Post Office was doomed.

My husband decided to move to the Northwest so the desert wouldn't bake his brains anymore. It became twenty-five years of gray skies and downpours. We did have an acre of land, but it was too wet too have horses. I continued writing short stories, but when I received two rejection letters praising my work and the periodical still didn’t buy, I went back to work.

Somehow I landed at Nintendo of America. They paid me to talk, write, read, and play games, and they paid extremely well. There was no time to write for to collect those outrageous bonus awards every six months it was extra hours. The best part was the insurance as my husband was more and more afflicted with arthritis.

When he could no longer work, we considered returning to the desert. Our daughter was here in the quirky, art made area of Southern California where the housing was incredibly cheap; not just inexpensive, but cheap. They also had a delightful small museum.
My husband saw me sitting in a trance one morning and asked what I was doing. I explained the story running in my mind and he said, “Why don’t you go back to writing? I always liked your stories.” When I showed him the first one hundred and ten pages, he said, “I want to know what happens to that young man.”

I was about halfway through the scifi western Gather The Children when he passed away. I became so angry, I wrote the violent Man, True Man first and then went back to the other stories. It was a long learning curve, but the association with Creativia has been most rewarding. Earthbound earned an Amazon Best Seller Award last year and the rest of the six novels of Chronicles of the Maca have been doing well. Even the Twisted Tales anthologies are selling.

The little museum deserves another line. I enjoyed working there so much, they elected me to the Twentynine Palms Historical Society’s Board of Directors. If you are ever here, stop by and see what a one room schoolhouse looked like.