MaryJoy Martin

Born on a beach under a full moon, MaryJoy Martin landed in Colorado a wee time after the glaciers receded. As an investigative journalist with a background in history and the criminal sciences, she has been writing about the state's mysteries for over thirty years. Her books include the popular "Twilight Dwellers: Ghosts, Gases, and Goblins of Colorado," and the recent award-winning, "The Corpse on Boomerang Road: Telluride's War on Labor 1899-1908," a book in development as a motion picture with Elbow Grease Pictures in Hollywood. An extensive traveler, she has written articles on a wide range of subjects for state and national magazines and newspapers.

For over 25 years she has written a humor column for the "San Juan Horseshoe," a parody periodical that also features her photos, cartoons and digital "pixelations." Her dozens of pseudonyms for that publication are an ongoing art-form in themselves, leaving readers guessing -- and Martin wondering -- who she is sometimes. "They call me 'Empress of Aliases,'" she says.

Her serious and scholarly work has solved 100-year-old crimes, changing what was accepted as historical fact. Some reviewers have called her a "tenacious investigator" and a "dedicated researcher," but Martin says her determination to hunt down the last scrap of a story is "obsession." She seeks primary materials and documented evidence with the focus of a bloodhound, spending weeks and months lost in dusty court record rooms, state archives, or special library collections. She has a deep affinity for archivists, extolling them as the "guardians of our heritage."

Martin is a member of the Colorado State Historical Society and has contributed to the preservation of the state's labor history, including having Ft. Peabody added to the National Register of Historic Places -- for further information go to this link: http://www.tellurideminersmemorial.coyotekiva.org/peabody.html

She is also an award-winning artist (professional name "MerryJoy") and photographer whose work is included in collections throughout the U.S.A., Scotland, England, and France (see maryjoymartin.net). She created many of the portraits for "The Corpse on Boomerang Road," using scratched and blurred printouts from old microfilmed newspaper photos as her models.

Her heart belongs to the wilderness where she spends her free time on the edge of remote cliffs or singing with legions of coyotes and marmots.