“Mary’s work adds a whole new dimension to the phrase ‘nature lover’. I’ve always enjoyed the ‘great outdoors’, but Mary’s use of metaphor has opened me to a whole new way of seeing the planet and my place in it.”
Linda A. Curtis
Mary Reynolds Thompson, CPCC, CAPF is an award-winning writer, creativity coach, and facilitator of poetry and journal therapy. She conducts writing and spiritual ecology workshops throughout the world, delivering a unique blend of the latest coaching methods with journal and poetry therapy.
Mary is core faculty for the Therapeutic Writing Institute, the leading training institute for practitioners in the field of therapeutic writing and has taught for the International Women’s Writing Guild, National Association of Poetry Therapy, The Women’s Writing Experience, Expressive Therapies Summit, and many other conferences. Her own retreats, classes, and workshops are delivered both in the States and Internationally.
In her former life, Mary was a copywriter and editor for a host of international companies, including Harrods of London, Starbucks, and Hallmark. As a branding expert she named, among other things, the movie “French Kiss” with Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan. She brings her marketing expertise to helping others brand their books and build their platforms.
Mary is author of Embrace Your Inner Wild: 52 Reflections for an Eco-Centric World (White Cloud Press 2011) and Reclaiming the Wild Soul: How Earth’s Landscapes Restore Us to Wholeness (White Cloud Press 2014). Her writing has been praised by authors Richard Louv, David Abram, Jane Hirshfield, and Angeles Arrien, among others. Both her books were finalists for best nature book of the year; and Reclaiming the Wild Soul was also named finalist for the best Body, Mind and Spirit book of 2014. Her articles have appeared in numerous publications and several anthologies, including Earth & Eros. She self-published The 30 Day Writer’s Challenge in 2011.
In Mary’s Own Words:
I believe I was called to be a writer when 
I was just seven years old. I was sitting on the jungle gym in the playground of the Convent of the Holy Child in London, engrossed in writing a book about a little girl raised in the woods by wolves. The book was about 5″ square, and stitched down the middle to make “real” pages.
For years, I followed the writer’s call halfheartedly, as a copywriter and marketer. I made up names for spas, movies, and cars, and wrote copy for everything from trucks to lipstick. But in early 2000 something changed. I awakened to the pain of how we were treating the Earth and thus ourselves. A spark was lit inside of me. I was finally ready to Answer the Call.
I honestly believe we sense the call long before we say yes to it. Sometimes we need a little nudge––or even a rather large push––to get moving. That’s why I developed Write the Damn Book. I have come to view writing a book as a heroic journey that introduces us to our most creative, imaginative, and deepest selves, and also to our demons and detractors–the places that hold us small.
How we write our books is a mirror for how we live our lives. Thus, the writer’s journey is, in many ways, a soul journey.
And if we continue to refuse to Answer the Call, I have to ask: Do we lose a little bit of our power and our magic?