Biography
Marian Frances Wolbers was born in Chicago, Illinois. She writes novels, short stories, drama, poetry, and nonfiction. Her first novel, Rider, was released by St. Martin's Press in November 1996 under the Wyatt imprint, receiving favorable reviews by Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Library Journal ("recommended for all public and academic libraries"). Her short story "The Rescue" was published in The Southampton Review (Spring 2014); "The Woodpile" appeared in Westview (Fall 2014); and "Carolyn's Supper" debuted June 2015 in Remarkable Doorways (online literary journal).
Wolbers' most recent novel, Pennsylvania Powwow, or Rising Sun above the Devil's Door, tells the story of Leora, her broken heart, and a life-and-death sibling struggle over family land and legacy. Bowed in spirit, overwhelmingly dispossessed of all that is familiar to her, Leora returns to Penn's Woods to discover an uncanny healing gift that changes the lives and destinies of a longtime friend from childhood as well as everyone else she encounters. Set in the 1980s, the story's action moves from the Pennsylvania Dutch hills with their secretive powwowing practices to the New Hampshire forests where an unsettling mystery suddenly seals Leora's - and her family's - fate. Published July 2020 by Pretzel City Press, Reading, PA.
Two of Wolbers’ dramatic plays, American Beauties and Holding the World, have been produced, in Lewisburg and Allentown, PA, respectively, while a third play, Return of the Sun Goddess, was featured in a staged reading at the First Annual North Carolina Playwrights Festival. Other plays include Red Light, Green Light and The Summit.
Creative nonfiction includes Migraine: Pain of the Body, Cry of the Spirit (Booklocker, 2009); currently in production is Sole to Soul, Heel to Heal: The Art of Intuitive Foot Massage. Other short stories include “The Crystal Curve,” “Contents of a Handbag,” and “The Vegetable Garden (Thoreau Revisited),” among others. Her autobiographical project, The Japan Diaries: A Memoir (1970-71), is in process.