Mary Fontana is the author of Strangers in the Province of Joy: Practicing Radical Hospitality on the US-Mexico Border, a narrative history of the migrant house of hospitality where she has volunteered for the past two decades, published in May 2026 by Orbis Books.

Her writing has appeared in America, BorderLore, Consequence, National Catholic Reporter, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, SWIMM, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the 2025 Richard J. Margolis Award for social journalism and took second place for the 2026 Frederick Morgan Award in poetry. She trained as a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley and did infectious disease research for a decade before turning to writing full-time. She now lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

Mary Fontana ~ Author – i’m better on paper

Mary Francesca Fontana (@maryfontanawrites) • Instagram photos and videos

Mary Fontana (@maryfontanawrites.bsky.social) — Bluesky