Mary is a freelance writer with a master's degree in journalism from the University of Illinois who has written hundreds of features about New Orleans and Louisiana on a wide range of subjects, including museums, parks, schools, festivals, historical preservation, coastal environment, strawberries, meat pies and "ordinary" New Orleanians. She skews heavily toward the arts, having covered dance for New Orleans Advocate, theater for Gambit and being an avid lindyhop dancer, herself. Mary appreciates art, having studied at the Louvre during a year abroad in Paris, and often promotes local artists. As an undergraduate at Newcomb College of Tulane University, Mary absorbed New Orleans' joie de vie and narrated tours of the French Quarter, Garden District and Lakefront while driving a 16-passenger Mercedes Benz bus. Returning in '07 after Hurricane Katrina, having lived on the West Coast and in Chicago, she rediscovered the city's charms, while learning much more about its complex history and deep culture. Now, she lives in a tiny house on the bank of the Mississippi River in the Lower Ninth Ward, "where the levees broke." Mary can share offbeat tours of the Lower 9, Irish Channel and Bayou St. John, combining history, art, music, food and culture.