Mary J. Davis was born and raised in SE Iowa. She married husband Larry in 1967.
They have three grown children and eight grandchildren.
Mary's passion in life has always been children and the elderly, jokingly adding that the in-betweens come second to the very young and the elderly. Mary has served in many capacities in the church, including Sunday school supervisor, VBS director, Sunday school and Bible study teacher for all ages, church secretary, church volunteer janitor, and any other need that comes about. She has also worked in schools, libraries, daycare centers, nursing homes....and some jobs not directly related to children or elderly folks.
When their last child left home, Mary sat on the couch for about a week, then decided to pursue her dream of being a writer. Her first several articles sold on the first try. Then, she began to read every writing book she could find, and continued to hone her craft.
Mary's main niche is the Christian education field, along with Christian books directly for children. She has sold works to Rainbow Publishers/Legacy Press, DC Cook NexGen, and Shining Star. To date, Mary has sold 70 books and over ten thousand articles. In addition, she has sold dozens of greeting cards, calendars, and novelty items to Gibson Greetings, American Greetings, Current Inc., J-Mar, Argus, and Warner Press.
She has also written Bible curriculum for several publishing houses, including DC Cook, Nazarene/Word Action, Church Educators, Methodist Publishing/Abington, Baptist Publishers, and others.
Other items written by Mary include articles in Second Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul/Chicken Soup for the College Soul/Chicken Soup for the Soul, Resolutions/Chicken Soup for the Romantic Soul. She also has contributed to Pinches of Salt-Prisms of Light, and God's Abundance for Women.
The most interesting item that Mary has had published is 'paper towels'.
"One day, I got an email from Current Inc., announcing that they had just shared the rights to my calendars entitled '365 Ways to Share Love with Your Child'. Proctor and Gamble used the 'sharing love' ideas, along with Current's illustrations, to put on Bounty paper towels. People always ask how I 'wrote' paper towels. It was fun seeing my little ideas printed on the paper towels."
My most rewarding result from my writing has been receiving letters from someone on the missionary field or someone from a church in another country, telling how one of my articles touched their life or made it possible to share Christ with someone. These letters are sent to the editor of the Sunday school paper or church magazine that published the articles. The editor, in turn, sends me the letters. What a blessing those letters are to a writer!
The funniest thing that has happened to me, so far, is having my return envelope that contained a rejection slip delivered to someone else in my mail district. An elderly man looked up my phone number and called to tell me off. He thought it was some kind of scam that he received in HIS mailbox, a letter addressed TO me and the return address was FROM me. He threatened to call the Sheriff's department and have me arrested. I alerted our small Post Office, and the mail carrier retrieved the letter for me and apologized for the error.
The funniest result of my writing was when my oldest grandchild had attended my home church when visiting our home with his mother. The craft that day happened to be from one of my books. The children glued small marshmallows onto a sheep picture. Michael showed his craft to Mommy as they were getting into the car. He wouldn't let Mommy take the picture and put it into her bag.
When they arrived home, my daughter noticed that the marshmallows were gone off the picture. She looked in the back seat, expecting to see sticky marshmallows all over the floor and seat. "Where are the marshmallows?" she asked Michael. He matter-of-factly answered, "I ate 'em. I was hungry."
That led me to be careful about using food items in crafts that weren't meant to be eaten.
Two of Mary's books, published by Rainbow Publishers, have earned MOMS CHOICE GOLD AWARDS in 2011. The award-winning books are: Instant Bible Lessons for Preteens - Rock Solid Faith; and Teaching Children to Pray - Ages 4 and 5.
