Roanoke journalist and writer Mary Bishop has a Pulitzer Prize, and a new book out.
Mary Bishop, a much-honored Roanoke journalist until her retirement, has spent the past few years researching and writing a gripping memoir, Don’t You Ever; My Mother and Her Secret Son (Harper Collins). The book will be released July 3 and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com ($27.99 or $19.99 Kindle). She will have a private book launch July 11 and public signings at Book No Further bookshop downtown, 6:30, Tuesday, July 17, and at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 6:30, Thursday, July 19.
Pre-print publicity calls Don’t You Ever “a modern Dickensian tale about a child seemingly cursed from birth; a woman shattered by guilt; a husband plagued by self-doubt; a prodigal daughter whose innocence was cruelly snatched away—all living in genteel Central Virginia, a world defined by extremes of rural poverty and fabulous wealth.”
Mary is the only person I have ever known who seems apologetic about winning a Pulitzer Prize (“Oh, it was only a little piece of one,” she says). She won for her work as part of an investigative group covering Three Mile Island for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She was nominated in 1989 for another Pulitzer as a writer at The Roanoke Times for her stories on fraud in the pest control industry. In 1990, she was nominated again for her work at The Times on a huge coal strike.
She called a while back asking if I’d known her brother, Ronnie, who used to be a barber in Vinton. I was the editor of the newspaper over there in the 1980s. “Sure,” I said. “That was ‘Lurch,’” which is what I called him because he resembled the TV character from the “Addams Family.” I told her what I knew—which wasn’t a lot, except maybe that he had one of the great barbershop libraries I’d ever experienced (the Utne Reader, for heaven’s sake!). She said she was working on a book about a lost brother. I had no idea it would come to what it has come to: a major release from one of the biggest publishers in the country.
The book launch will be held a few blocks from where Ronnie had his barbershop.
Except for occasional commentary, Mary has been mostly quiet since her retirement from The Roanoke Times, a few years ago, where she made a lot of noise as one of the best reporters this region has ever seen. She has lately been active in protesting the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
The book is yet another major release from a Roanoke Valley writer, which has become something of breeding ground for important books (Roland Lazenby, Sharyn McCrumb, Rod Belcher, Beth Macy, CeCe Bell, Tom Angleberger, Liza Mundy, David Baldacci and others).
About the Writer:
Dan Smith is an award-winning Roanoke-based writer/author/photographer and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame (Class of 2010). His blog, fromtheeditr.com, is widely read and he has authored seven books, including the novel CLOG! He is founding editor of a Roanoke-based business magazine and a former Virginia Small Business Journalist of the Year (2005).
