Mary Douglas, 1945-2008

Mary Douglas loved producing books and putting great teams together to match the needs of a particular author or market. She has publishing friends all across the country--freelancers and in-house folks who never met her but learned from her and loved working with her, authors who loved that she always went above and beyond to make a book the best that it could be, and in-house project managers who were amazed at the unorthodox ways that Mary could come up with to make a schedule. And all will miss the quick wit and sense of humor that were part of her every endeavor. She will be missed.

Mary was born in Dayton, Ohio but was raised and educated in Michigan. She graduated from North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, with a degree in biology. She taught for several years in North Carolina and then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1970s, where she began her publishing career in Production for Cummings Publishing. Mary moved from Production and became an Acquisitions Editor in Chemistry for a couple years before moving back to Production. Shortly thereafter she formed her own production company. Mary worked mostly with college publishers: Thomson Wadsworth, Benjamin/Cummings, Addison-Wesley, Mayfield, and Wiley, but she was always happy to work directly with authors to help them self-publish.

Mary moved to southern Oregon in 1992, continuing her production service business as Rogue Valley Publications. Mary was also a life coach, helping clients discover the means to use their own talents to lead a happier life.