Mary Burns was born in Joliet, Illinois, near Chicago, the fourth of eleven children. A former journalist, documentary filmmaker, and professor of creative writing, she has published widely in literary magazines and is the author of six books, including four novels, two story collections and a non-fiction book, The Private Eye: Observing Snow Geese, which was shortlisted for the Science in Society Book award. Her radio plays were broadcast on CBC and BBC Radio 3, and some were collected in the anthology Take Five, The Morningside Dramas, edited by Dave Carley. She has also written several stage plays. She has lived in New York City, southern and northern California, British Columbia and the Yukon Territory, where she worked for five years as editor of the Yukon News, but now spends most of the year just north of Vancouver, in Grantham's Landing, B.C., and several months in Quebec City.