Environmental Scientist, Writer
Mary Heather Noble is an environmental scientist, writer, and mother whose work is inspired by social and environmental issues and the intersection of the natural world, family, and place. She is a 2015 Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship recipient, and her essay collection, Plumes: On Contamination of Home and Habitat, was selected by New York Times bestselling author Karen Joy Fowler as the winner of the 2014 Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature (sponsored by Ashland Creek Press).
Noble’s work has also been honored with first prize in Creative Nonfiction’s The Human Face of Sustainability contest, as a finalist in Bellingham Review‘s 2016 Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction, second prize in the 2012 Literal Latté Essay Awards, and honorable mention in the 38th New Millennium Writings Nonfiction Awards. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in About Place Journal, Fourth Genre, High Desert Journal, Hippocampus, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Minerva Rising, Orion, Pithead Chapel, Quartz, THE FEM, The Sun, and Utne Reader.
Noble is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program at the University of Southern Maine. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geology from The Ohio State University, and a Master’s degree in Environmental Science from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Vermont after living in Oregon for nine years.
