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Mary Soderstrom is a Montreal-based writer of fiction and non-fiction. She is the author of seven works of non-fiction, three short story collections, six novels and one children's book. In addition over the years she has done a wide variety of reporting on science, urbanism, politics and writing. The University of Regina Press published her Concrete: From Ancient Origins to a Problematic Future in October 2020. The year before the press brought out her Frenemy Nations: Love and Hate in Neighbo(u)ring States. Follow her Twitter account for updates @frenemynations.
In 2017 the University of Regina Press published her Road through Time: The Story of Humanity on the Move. Publishers' Weekly said: "Soderstrom constructs a competent layperson’s guide in bright, conversational prose, skillfully using her own experiences and just-so stories about the peoples of the past as springboards to exploring humankind’s long history of migration."
Her novel River Music was published by Cormorant Press in 2015. The Montreal Review of Books said: "While the life of a prominent pianist can often be romanticized, Soderstrom reveals that a dedicated musician must choose a ruthless existence if determined to become a virtuoso. ... But by the end of River Music, the reader understands that the only thing Gloria, the heroine, has loved all her life is the piano and the music she makes on it. Her eldest child, Frances, sums it up succinctly: “Don’t forget that to make a musical career you’ve got to be so tough that you’d sell your first born to get ahead.”
In November 2013 Oberon Press published her 13th book, Desire Lines: Stories of Love and Geography ISBN 13: 9780778014096. The first review in The Montreal Review of Books says: "Desire Lines revolves around a set of themes, notably the desire and geography of the title, yet each story approaches an idea in a different way. Desire lines are defined as the “paths that people take when they want to go somewhere,” which “frequently have no relation to the formal layout of roads and sidewalks.” The characters taking these paths are fascinating, complex, and refreshingly diverse. Soderstrom employs a wonderful economy of language, so that much is conveyed about the characters in a relatively short space."
Making Waves: The Continuing Portuguese Adventure was published by Véhicule Press in 2010. ISBN-10: 1550652923 The book is an outgrowth of the traveling she has done in recent years for her other books. Everywhere she went--from the East coast of Africa to the West coast of India, from Brazil to Newfoundland--she found traces of the Portuguese and their descendants. Their story was little known and appreciat outside the Portuguese-speaking worldd, and Making Waves is an attempt to set that right.
Mary's other recent books include The Walkable City: From Haussmann's Boulevards to Jane Jacobs' Streets and Beyond, Vehicule Press, 2008
ISBN 978-1-55065-243-7
Kevin Plummer of The Torontist calls The Walkable City "an easy-to-read book that presents substantial ideas that will continue to percolate as the reader explores his or her city."
Mary's latest novel was published in spring 2008 by Cormorant Books
The Violets of Usambara
ISBN 978-1-55065-243-7
"Mary Soderstrom's The Violets of Usambara is a moving novel that explores the possibility of redemption in a morally complex world. Cutting between Canada and tension-filled Burundi, it has echoes of Graham Greene both in setting and tone, but it is above all Soderstrom's intelligent investigation of power and its absence and love over a lifetime of a marriage."Antanas Sileika
Her blog Recreating Eden (http://marysoderstrom.blogspot.com) is an eclectic, almost-daily look at the world. Recently she also began Not So Solitary A Pleasure: A Blog about Books (http://notsosolitaryapleasure.blogspot.com) in which she talks about books she likes and doesn't like.
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