Mary Willette Hughes – Multi Media Artist
Mary Willette Hughes, poet, musician, teacher, wife, mother of 7, grandmother of 23, and great grandmother of 10, has had three books of poetry published: Quilt Pieces in 2001 and Flight On New Wings in 2003 as well as The Shadow Loom Poems in 2010. She has worked part-time at the St Cloud Hospital’s Recovery Plus and Journey Home programs for addiction/recovery during the last 18 years as a facilitator of poetry as therapy. In 2010 she received a Public Service Award for her work from the National Association of Poetry Therapy. She also received two individual Artist Awards for poetry from the Central Minnesota Arts Board in 1998 and 2010.
In 1989, after her children were on their own, she discovered the world of writing poetry. After a career as a music teacher and working 18 years for the St Cloud Diocese in Minnesota, a new avocation gradually arrived. Poetry writing entered her world bringing a new dimension and zest to her life as she took creative writing classes wherever possible, and worked at learning how to write, to speak, and to sing in this new voice.
Mary was a part of a collaborative communal poem to honor The Paramount Theatre’s 100th Anniversary. Read Here.