Mary Swander

Mary Swander lives in an old one-room school house in the middle of the largest Amish settlement west of the Mississippi River. She is the Artistic Director of Swander Woman Productions, a theatre troupe that performs dramas about food, farming, and the wider rural environment. (www.maryswander.com.) She is also the Executive Director of AgArts, a nonprofit designed to imagine and promote healthy food systems through the arts. (www.agarts.org.) She hosts the podcast "AgArts from Horse & Buggy Land," about sustainability, the Amish, and rural living. An award-winning author, Swander has published books of poetry, non-fiction, drama, and scores of individual pieces in such places as The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, and Poetry. Her most recent book is The Maverick M.D. : Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez and His Fight for a New Cancer Treatment.

Swander plays the clawhammer banjo and raises goats, geese, and a large organic garden.