Get to know Mary Jones

Mary Jones is the author of the short story collection THE GOODBYE PROCESS (forthcoming from Zibby Books). Her stories and essays have appeared in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, EPOCH, Alaska Quarterly Review, Columbia Journal, The Hopkins Review, Southwest Review, Gay Mag, Epiphany: A Literary Journal, Brevity and in many other literary magazines. The recipient of a summer prose fellowship from The University of Arizona Poetry Center, her work has been cited as notable in The Best American Essays and will appear in The Best Microfiction 2022. She holds an MFA from Bennington College and teaches fiction writing at UCLA Extension. Originally from Upstate New York, she lives in Los Angeles.

Fun fact

I have a separate Instagram account strictly for following dogs.

Favorite author

Amy Hempel

Favorite place in the world

On a hike beside a stream.

Favorite place to read

Under a shady tree, or on a shady porch, with a breeze in the air.

Books by Mary Jones

The Goodbye Process

Mary Jones

Published July 30, 2024

A USA Today Bestseller! 

A Library Journal Best Book of 2024!

A Most Exciting Debut Short Story Collection of 2024 by Electric Literature

What happens when you are forced to let go of the things you love the most? What are you left with?  

In her stunning debut short story collection, The Goodbye Process, Mary Jones uses her distinctive voice to examine the painful and sometimes surreal ways we say goodbye.

The stories—which range from tender and heartbreaking to unsettling and darkly funny—will push you out of your comfort zone and ignite intense emotions surrounding love and loss. A woman camps out on the porch of an ex-lover who has barricaded himself inside the house; a preteen girl caught shoplifting finds herself in grave danger; a Los Angeles real estate agent falls for a woman who helps him detach from years of dramatic plastic surgery; a man hires a professional mourner to ensure his wife’s funeral is a success. Again and again, Jones’s characters find themselves facing the ends of things: relationships, health, and innocence.

Arresting, original, and beautifully rendered, this story collection packs a punch, just the way grief does―knocking us off our feet.

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The Goodbye Process
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