Early Years
Mary Bly was born in Minnesota in 1962, the daughter of Robert Bly, winner of the American Book Award for poetry, and Carol Bly, a short story author. She was the inspiration for her mother's essay "The Maternity Wing, Madison, Minnesota," which was published in the anthology Imagining Home: Writing From the Midwest. Her godfather, James Wright, wrote a poem especially for her, which he included in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Collected Poems. Bly has three younger siblings, Bridget, Noah, and Micah.
The Bly family did not own a television, but did own over 5000 books. Robert often read to his children, choosing to expose them to classics such as Beowulf instead of more traditional children's fare. Even at a young age, however, Mary was fascinated with romance. To entertain her siblings during a snowstorm, she built a puppet show, complete with lights, that featured a romance. Several years later, after discovering the romance novels of Georgette Heyer in her local library, Bly convinced her father to allow her to read one romance novel for each classic novel she read.
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Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years.”
—Anthony Powell (b. 1905)
“Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends—the few”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“It is bitter to think of one’s best years disappearing in this unpolished country.”
—Greta Garbo (1905–1990)