Mary Gray Kaye will be the featured poet in the UU Fellowship’s Dickinson Poetry Series on May 8, 7:00 pm.

Mary Gray Kaye is a published writer whose many years of diversified experience find a place in her writing. Her professional background includes newspaper reporting, public relations and corporate travel. Her creative life has produced ghostwritten memoirs, essays, magazines articles, poems and fiction. She served as a script supervisor for a Chicago film production company. She participates in Chicago’s Neighborhood Writing Alliance and other Chicago writing communities, is a graduate of Northwestern University and has attended Ragdale Writers Retreat in Lake Forest IL. She has delivered readings at the Chicago Public Library, the Printers Row Book Fair, the Chicago Humanities Festival, the University of Chicago and DePaul University.

When asked about her poetry Kaye explained, “That poetry has become an important part of my life is enigmatic. I was trained as a journalist; my desire was to be a novelist. Whence the poet? As my novel evolved, I became my character, a woman who aspired to poetry in spite of a major emotional slam. While I was writing her story, I wrote her poetry, none of it included in the manuscript because I didn’t want my reader to be judging her on the basis of my poetic ability. But the listeners at the UU Fellowship will hear it.”

On the second Wednesday of every month the Dickinson Poetry Series features a renowned local or regional poet followed by an open mic, providing an opportunity for others to read their poetry. A reception follows the reading.