Name
Mary Dean Lee

Pronouns
She/Her

Bio
Mary Dean Lee began publishing poems in American and Canadian journals in 2019 and was selected for Best Canadian Poetry 2021. Her recent work appears in Ploughshares, The Fiddlehead, Burningword, Dunes Review, Salvation South and Hamilton Stone Review. Pine Row Press released her debut poetry collection, Tidal, April 2024, which was a Finalist in the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2024 A. M. Klein Poetry Prize. She lives with her husband in Montreal.

She studied political science at Duke University, and literature and theatre at Eckerd College, finishing her final year with a solo piano recital, production and direction of two one-act plays, and her thesis “Dance as Art vs. Self-Expression.” She also represented the city of St. Petersburg, Florida in a Sister City Exchange program with Takamatsu, Japan, where she spent a year teaching English in a Japanese high school and making public appearances and speeches to promote international relations. She settled in Philadelphia after returning home and worked as a teacher several years before pursuing graduate study in educational and organizational psychology at Temple University and the University of South Florida. She completed a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at Yale with a thesis titled “The Design of Individual Life Space.”

After a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Business School, Mary Dean moved to Montreal for a job as an Assistant Professor in the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, where she moved up over the years to Associate and Full Professor. She received multiple, large research grants from Canadian government sources and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to pursue cutting-edge research on women and work, alternative work arrangements, and the changing nature of retirement. McGill recognized her as the most cited professor in the media in 1999, with coverage by over 70 different media, including CBC Radio and Television, NBC Nightly News, CTV National News, Financial Times, and Los Angeles Times. She published scientific articles in a range of academic outlets, as well as Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today.

Website
marydeanlee.com

Where in Montreal are you located?
Montreal West

What do you love about that neighborhood?
We live on a cul de sac street that is very quiet, aside from lots of street hockey, basketball, kids playing. There is lots of green space and you can walk to the fruit and vegetable market, cafes. We treasure our good neighbors eager to help out and from a variety of generations, backgrounds, cultures. The train takes you into town in 12 min., and the de Maisonneuve bike path is just a half hour to get to McGill in one direction or 15 min. to the Lachine Canal in the other.

What’s your favourite art space in Montreal and why?
Atwater Library Auditorium. It's a good size with a stage and podium, excellent speaker system. For chamber music I love Bourgie Hall for the acoustics and sightlines from the balcony.

Describe your art in your own words.
My poems are distilled capturing of emotions, personal experiences, relationships, mysteries, places/environments.

What have you been working on recently?
I've been writing new poems, experimenting with new subject matter and styles, and reading more widely contemporary poets.

How would you describe your poetic voice?
About Mary Dean Lee

Flowing near the Okefenokee, soothed by train whistles, tracks rattling beside miles of slash pine.

Raised with cousins, summers on barrier islands, conch harvesting, riding waves, and the tides stirred by pounding and flashes in the sky.

A wicked arm-wrestler, torch singer, believer in changing the world. Wound up in Montreal.

Professor, researcher, complainer.

I should tell you about being a mother, because it’s important to who I am and to my poetry. But I will say nothing.

I fly a scarlet kite with yellow tail-feathers in high winds, not afraid if it lifts me off to Timbuktu.

I ride my bike to the market for beans and corn, oak-leaf lettuce, acorn squash, Quebec straws and blues. There’s a little bell on one of the handlebars that I have never rung.

Where do you find your inspiration?
From my own experiences, things I see and hear, touch and taste and feel.

Describe your writing process.
I try to write 20 hrs a week, mostly mornings. I write to prompts with two poet friends once a week on Zoom. Every poem goes through many, many drafts/editing.

Who are some of your favorite writers?
Eleanor Wilner, Ada Limon, Elizabeth C. Warren, Galway Kinnell, Lara Egger

What do you love about Montreal's poetry scene?
It's vibrant, accessible, and it seems there are lots of people who love poetry!