Mary Connealy

Early life

Connealy was born in Oakland, Nebraska, and grew up on a farm in rural Lyons, Nebraska. She is the third of eight children of farmer and social worker Jackson Moore, and social worker and pianist Dorothy (Frew) Moore.

Connealy attended Jefferson School, a one-room country school house, for eight years during elementary school, and graduated from Lyons High School in 1974. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mass Communications, graduating magna cum laude from Wayne State College, Wayne, Nebraska, in 1976.

Career

Connealy wrote for ten years before she got her first book published, and had 20 finished books when she made her first sale. She published her first books with Barbour Publishing. After writing nineteen books for Barbour Publishing, she signed with Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group, in 2011. Out of Control appeared on the Christian Booksellers Association national best-sellers list in September 2011 and also on the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) national fiction best-seller list. Connealy is also published by Thomas Nelson Publishing, a division of HarperCollins Publishers LLC. Connealy was a finalist for best first book in the American Christian Fiction Writer's (ACFW) 2008 Carol Awards with Petticoat Ranch. Doctor in Petticoats was a finalist for a 2011 RITA Award finalist-Best Inspirational Romance. Calico Canyon was a nominee for a Christy Award. Calico Canyon was best known for its opening line: "The Five Horseman of the Apocalypse rode in. Late as usual."

Selected published works

As Mary Nealy

Mary Connealy has a few older works, with rights reverted, that she published under the pen name Mary Nealy.

Awards