Mary Robison

Mary Robison, née Cennamo, was born in Washington, D.C. to F. Elizabeth (Cennamo) Reiss, a child psychologist, and Anthony Cennamo, a patent attorney, and grew up in Columbus, Ohio. She started writing as a child and. She attended Ohio State University and earned an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, where she studied with John Barth. She taught creative writing at numerous colleges and universities, including Oberlin and Harvard before becoming a professor at the University of Florida. She began publishing her work in The New Yorker magazine in 1977 with the short story "Sisters." The New Yorker has since published two dozen of her stories, many of which also appear in anthologies. Her first collection of short stories, Days: Stories, was published in 1979. Her novel Oh!, published in 1981, was adapted into the 1989 film Twister. Her other works include the short story collections An Amateur's Guide to the Night (1983) and Believe Them (1988). In the 1990s she suffered from severe writer's block and, in an effort to overcome it, scribbled her thoughts on thousands of index cards. These cards were the basis of her novel Why Did I Ever (2001). Her novel One DOA, One on the Way (2009) was chosen by Oprah Winfrey's Book Club. Robison has two daughters and has been married twice. Her second husband was author James Robison.