Mary J. Oliver

Mary J. Oliver had been teaching and practising as a visual artist for many years, when she  took time out to find out about her father, always a mysterious presence in her life. In 2017, the original manuscript of the resulting book, Jim Neat, won second prize in the New Welsh Writing Memoir Award and five of the poems were set to music by Cornish composer, Judith Bailey: https://open.spotify.com/album/12pdFAo5A6FcNfspqWYtL0

Within a year of being published by Seren in 2019, it had been made into a podcast by Alternative Stories and Fake Realities:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/411730/2265008.  Over the next two years, a young Danish screen-writer and a South African film-maker developed a film-script, called The Worker’s Body, based on the book. More recently, an Australian-born scriptwriter adapted it as a stage play, entitled My Father’s Daughter.

Meanwhile Mary J. Oliver has returned to doing what she loves most, tutoring and running workshops, exploring the process of ‘writing with the mind’s eye’. Details of her artwork and tutoring sessions can be found at www.maryjoliver.com

She has daughters and grandchildren whom she adores, and lives happily with her husband in Newlyn in Cornwall.