About
Maryann Lesert is a playwright, novelist, and English professor who writes about people and place in equal measure. Her first novel, Base Ten (Feminist Press, 2009) featured an astrophysicist’s quest for self among the dunes and the stars. Her current novel, Land Marks, is based on two years of boots-on-wellsites research on fracking in Michigan’s state forests. Her plays appear in The Art of the One Act (New Issues, 2008) and Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2007 (Smith & Kraus, 2008). Her articles have appeared in EcoWatch and In These Times, and she is a regular presenter on art and activism. Maryann lives in West Michigan, where she teaches creative writing and writes by the big lake.
Featured Work
Land Marks, A Novel
In the river-crossed northwoods of Michigan, Kate, Brett, Sonya, and Mark, mentored by their former professor Rebecca, keep watch as North American Energy (NorA) connects a corridor of frack well sites deep in the state forests. When NorA expands in unexpected directions and their awful, bigger plan becomes clear, the action begins.
As grassroots activists gather and prepare to stop NorA’s dangerous superfrac, stresses other than the fracturing of the bedrock appear. Sonya is arrested, Rebecca reveals her hidden past, and the one person who knows both women’s stories arrives in camp. Love and solidarity want to win, even if most showdowns with Big Oil don’t end well for those who take a stand.
Suspenseful, poignant, and galvanizing, Land Marks is a tribute to the waterways that connect us, the land that sustains us, and the moments that inspire us to rise up and say, “No more!”
Other Works
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Base Ten
2009
Awards and Recognition
- Writer in Residence: Storyknife (2022)
- Moondancer Environmental Writing Fellowship, The Writer's Colony (2018)
- Finalist (Threshold), Prism Prize for Climate Literature, Homebound Publications (2020)
- Finalist (Natural Causes), Princess Grace Foundation National Playwright's Fellowship (2001)
- Land Marks, A Novel, 2024 Foreword Indies Finalist for Book of the Year (Fiction)
