Mary Tolan

Longtime reporter Mary Tolan worked as a community journalist for more than three decades, mostly in Arizona and New Mexico. She has reported on survivors of gun violence, traveling across the country to interview people devastated by their heartbreak and losses. She taught journalism at Northern Arizona University for twenty years. After retiring from teaching in 2021, she returned to her unfinished mystery novel, Mars Hill Murder, based in Flagstaff.

Tolan grew up in Wisconsin, and has lived in the Southwest for more than forty years. Her long-running monthly column The Long & Winding Road can be found in The Arizona Daily Sun.

When she’s not writing, spending time with friends, or running/swimming/yoga-ing, she and her dog Maxx can be found out in the woods or traveling in their van.

Tolan’s sons live in California, her stepdaughter in Oregon, and her dog by her side—wondering when the heck she will stop typing and go for a walk.