About
Marnie Mueller was born in the Tule Lake Japanese American Segregation Camp in Northern California during WWII to Caucasian parents, young progressives, who went there to try to make an intolerable situation tolerable for those incarcerated there.
She is the author of three novels: GREEN FIRES: a novel of the Ecuadorian Rainforest; THE CLIMATE OF THE COUNTRY, set in the Tule Lake Segregation Camp; and MY MOTHER'S ISLAND, the story of her mother's death in a small Puerto Rican community outside San Juan.
Her Memoir/Biography, THE SHOWGIRL AND THE WRITER, about her friendship with a Nisei Showgirl who was incarcerated in Minidoka Camp in Idaho was published by Peace Corps Writers in July 2023.
Mueller's work has received numerous awards and citations, including an AMERICAN BOOK AWARD and a Barnes and Noble "Discover Great New Writers" selection.
Featured Work
"The Showgirl and The Writer"
The Showgirl and the Writer, A Friendship Forged in the Aftermath of the Japanese American Incarceration, by Marnie Mueller, is a hybrid memoir/biography. It encompasses Mueller’s own story, beginning at her birth to Caucasian parents in the Tule Lake Japanese American High Security Camp in Northern California, and tells the tale of her long friendship with Mary Mon Toy, a Nisei performer who was incarcerated in the Minidoka Japanese American Camp in Idaho during WWII. The two met by chance in 1994. By then Mueller was a published author and Mary Mon Toy by necessity of old age, had retired from an unusually successful career on stage and television, for an Asian American actor of her time. After Ms. Mon Toy’s death, Mueller penned the previously untold story of Mon Toy’s fierce determination to put the Incarceration behind and her precipitous rise as a working actor.
