Falling Light and Waters Turning: Adventures in Being Human

press release: Mary North Allen, formerly of Madison, Mineral Point, and Verona, worked for many years on a memoir of her extraordinary life. The book, Falling Light and Waters Turning: Adventures in Being Human has recently been published, and her family will be in Mineral Point, Mount Horeb, and Madison at the end of October for book receptions and celebrations.

Help Mary’s family celebrate the publication of her memoir on Thursday, October 27, 1:00-3:00 PM, Mount Horeb High School, 305 S 8th Street, Mount Horeb; Friday, October 28, 7:00-9:00 PM at the Brewery Pottery, 276 Shake Rag Street, Mineral Point; and on Saturday, October 29, 3:00-5:00 PM at The Gardens, 602 N. Segoe Road, Madison. Books and some photographs will be available for purchase.

Mary North Allen was a photographer and teacher of photography who impacted the lives of many Wisconsin residents through her classes, workshops, and art. She was Wisconsin Artful Woman of the year in about 1993, and the first recipient of the David T. Dresen award for excellence in photography. She taught photography at the University of Wisconsin Extension and later founded Camera Works, a school where she taught along with other gifted photographers. She died in 2011, leaving unfinished a book of her photography and autobiography. Her daughter, Katy Allen, a 1969 graduate of Mount Horeb High School, edited the manuscript, and with the support of her brothers, Tom (MHHS 1965) and David Allen, brought the book into being.

Falling Light and Waters Turning: Adventures in Being Human in Word and Image is a magnificent story of a woman discovering her artistic nature part-way through life, and pursuing it. In her forties, she went back to school and got a BA in Art at UW-Madison, after raising her three children and struggling through a midlife crisis in which she searched to find herself. Her journey of healing took on new energy and direction when she reconnected with an old love, photography, and discovered a feedback relationship to herself, through art, that she had never had before.

Mary’s memoir is filled with stories of her unusual childhood traveling the world, her transformation of her life through art and teaching, her lyrical poetic prose, and her stunning photos—more than 200 of them, some color some black and white. Falling Light and Waters Turning is a book that many different kinds of people can enjoy, relate to, and perhaps find echoes of some of their own life's trials and triumphs. You can find excerpts and some of Mary’s photos at www.fallinglightwatersturning.com.