Mary Troy
Associate Professor 445 Lucas Hall
314-516-6845
marytroy@umsl.edu
M.F.A. University of Arkansas
B.A. English, University of Missouri-St. Louis
Director, MFA Program
Editor, Natural Bridge
Mary Troy directs the Master of Fine Arts program and serves as editor for Natural Bridge, a journal of contemporary literature. She teaches graduate workshops in fiction writing, as well as graduate seminars in literary journal editing; techniques, methods, and their effects in fiction writing. She also teaches undergraduates in the beginning fiction writing workshop, advanced fiction writing workshop, narrative techniques workshop, and classes in God in Fiction, and the novella.
Professor Troy has published dozens of short stories and essays and three books, all collections of short stories—Joe Baker is Dead, The Alibi Cafe and other stories, and Cookie Lily. She won a Nelson Algren Award for “Do You Believe In the Chicken Hanger?” Her third book, Cookie Lily, won the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale for the best book of prose published in 2004, and her second book, The Alibi Cafe and other stories, received a glowing review by the New York Times. Her novel, Beauties, will be published by BkMk Press in fall 2010 to inaugurate a new series of novels of the Midwest. Her stories and essays have been anthologized in Under the Arch and Honolulu Stories: Two Centuries of Writing.
She says, “I think in these brutal and conformist times, art is more important than ever. I see literature as religion, philosophy, and psychology rolled into one. People are the subject of literature, and we all struggle to make sense of our world and our lives. As a writer who has published fairly well, I see myself as a guide who is further along than my students, for we are all truly working on finding meaning in chaos, practicing and trying and getting better with each attempt.”