Mary K Gowdy
Hello, I'm Mary Katherine Gowdy and I'm a fantasy author and a poet. My books include the first two in The One and the Other Series--The One-Sided Coin and The Damned Ones--the poetry chapbook Sensuality., and poetry collection Where Have We Come From, Where Are We Going.
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All my thoughts and experiences are threads in my life’s tapestry, and to pull one is to touch all the others. Through both my poetry and fantasy novels, I aim to weave that tapestry together for others to understand.
My Books
The One-Sided Coin
Volume One of The One and the Other Series
"Crazy was a blessing if it meant that the darkness inhabiting her wasn't real."
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When Monoria’s institutionalized for burning her house down--with her family in it--she hopes this means that the voice in her mind isn’t real. But a scientist informs her that she’s infected with a parasite, an abomination originating from the mystic world. As part of the Secularists, an organization intent on eradicating anything mystical, the scientist promises to kill the parasite.
Monoria allows him to run tests, but as his methods turn questionable, she realizes that he might not have her best interests at heart nor be telling her the whole truth. The parasite is dangerous, but it also might be her only ally. It warns her than the Secularists will do anything to achieve their goal, even harming anyone who gets in their way. As the scientist nears a cure, she must decide who to trust—the scientist determined to destroy mysticism or the parasite that threatens to consume her soul.
Where Have We Come From, Where Are We Going?
Poetry Collection
"When the present events seem sickly surreal, some deny the danger, some fear future terrors."
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Where Have We Come From, Where Are We Going? is full of journeys – innocence to adulthood, faith’s march through deconstruction to renewal, and Time’s unstoppable trek as it takes us to hope or destruction. It chronicles the poet’s life during the personally, nationally, and globally tumultuous years of 2015 - 2020 which saw a young girl questioning what she thought she knew, the deepening of a nation’s divisions into cracks that can never be hidden again, and a pandemic that changed the path of everyone’s lives.
Touching on the topics of faith, nationalism, linguistics, love, and history, Where Have We Come From zeroes in on America. It analyzes through personal narrative the white-outed parts of its history, its relationship to Christianity, and its society's polarization. No one would disagree that this is a dark, uncertain time in our nation’s history. And Time always keeps going, so the question becomes: where are we headed?
Sensuality.
A Poetry Chapbook
"What will you see when you open my pages to dip your fingers into my blood?"
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Sensuality. contains fourteen poems concerning the relation between sensuality and emotions, particularly those conjured up by art. While sensuality is connected to sex, it goes beyond sexual experience into something spiritual, intellectual, emotional, intimate, but also deeply physical. All strong emotion is in some way sensual because of its intensity, and art is especially sensual because it gives us a realm to lose ourselves in the emotion. It may come through a song that gives us chills, a moment in a story that strikes through to our hearts, or through the dip and flow of words on our tongues when we read a line of verse. I define this sensation in terms of the concept of “La Petite Mort” (“the little death”), which has been described as the “brief loss or weakening of consciousness” or “the spiritual release” that can come with orgasm, sleep, or the effect of art on a person. These poems aim to prove this point by attempting to conjure up a similar sensation in you–the audience.
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