Mary Potter Kenyon

Author

Mary Potter Kenyon is proof that it is never too late to reinvent yourself. A Master’s program dropout, in 1988 Mary made the decision to devote herself to raising her own growing brood. For the next twenty-five years as a stay-at-home, homeschooling mother of eight, she managed to maintain a sense of self and sanity through the craft of freelance writing. Widowed at the age of 52, Mary was thrust into a workforce she had only dabbled in with various home businesses and occasional part-time work for newspapers and libraries. Emboldened and empowered through grief, Mary began an odyssey of discovery that led to her passion and purpose in life. The couponing workshops she’d begun conducting just months before her husband’s death became a lifeline that first year as she traveled with her youngest daughter to present at libraries throughout Iowa. She returned to the roots of elocution she’d practiced in drama and speech clubs in high school when she spoke on finding hope in grief at a church function and discovered she never felt more alive than when speaking in front of an audience. Seven months after her husband died, she would sign a contract for the book he had encouraged her to write. In the ensuing eight years, she signed six more. Mary founded an annual grief retreat in 2016 and took online training to become a certified grief counselor the following year. In 2019 she founded an annual writer’s conference at Shalom Spirituality Center in Dubuque, Iowa, where she works as a program coordinator. During the pandemic, Mary took online classes to become a Therapeutic Art Coach. Mary’s most recent book, Called to Be Creative: A Guide to Reigniting Your Creativity, chronicles a legacy of creativity, her creative reawakening, and encourages and inspires the reader to discover their own passions.