About the Author

The Back Story

Mary has written all her life, however, and previously penned one book, The History of Kappa Alpha Order, for which a Southern fraternity based on the character of Robert E. Lee hired a nice Jewish girl from the Southwest to tell their story. Because Lee was a gentleman, they were very nice to her.

Being a better speller than calculator, she admits she has written and edited more magazine and newspaper articles than she has counted, including pieces for Columbia Journalism Review, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly. She was a contributing editor to America West Airlines Magazine back when there was a magazine for what was then an airline (now American Airlines).

Her tenure in publishing includes co-founding BookZone, Inc., the web’s first place to buy books online (Amazon was an early customer), serving on the board of the national book publishers’ organization the Publishers Marketing Association (now the Independent Book Publishers Association), the Arizona Library Friends board and Arizona Writer’s Voice committee, and editing and producing more than a dozen books. Westheimer also worked in bookstores in Cincinnati, Ohio, her hometown, and in Colorado.

Other adventures include driving to Alaska when she was seventeen (she had a note from her parents saying she hadn’t run away), working as a carny in Ohio state fairs when she was 14 (“Pitch till you win! Prize every time!”), carving candles for a living, setting type as a printer’s devil, and working as a maid on the steamboat Delta Queen.

Westheimer now lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with her husband, sculptor Kevin Caron, their two cats and dog in the shadow of Camelback Mountain.

Learn more about the book or heck, reserve a copy for yourself, a friend or someone who needs to know they’re not alone.