Highlights & Sidelights
Mary Hollingsworth is author of more than
one hundred Christian adult, gift, and children’s books, animated videos, and
CD-ROMs. Sales of her books now top seven million copies, including My
Little Bible (Word Publishing, 1991), which received
both the Gold and Platinum Book Awards presented by the Evangelical Christian
Publishers Association, and The International Children’s Story Bible (Word Publishing, 1990), which received The Gold Book
Award. She also wrote Just Imagine! with Barney the dinosaur (The Lyons Group, 1992)—the first picture book
featuring Barney, which sold more than 1.3 million copies.
Mary’s
books have appeared on best-seller lists in the Christian market more than one
hundred times. One of her best-sellers, Hugs for Women (Howard Publishing, 1998), was on the CBA
Marketplace list for fifteen months and was a finalist for the 1999 Inspirational Gift Book of the Year
Award from The Inspirational Network.
In
May 2002, Mary was awarded the Spiritual Development Award from Howard Books, a
division of Simon & Schuster, recognizing her extensive Christian publishing career.
She has also had more than one hundred other works published, including magazine
articles, poetry, plays, and songs.
As
a production editor under contract for more than ten years with Thomas Nelson, Inc., Mary
supervised the production of best-selling books by such well known authors as
Billy Graham, Max Lucado, Charles Swindoll, Patsy Clairmont, Chuck Colson, Luci
Swindoll, Pat Robertson, Women of Faith, Dee Brestin, Kathy Troccoli, and others.
With a Bachelor of Science in Business Education degree from Abilene Christian
University (ACU), Mary has minor equivalents in Journalism and Bible. Her master’s
work is in Journalism and Communication. Her alma mater honored her in 2004
with the Distinguished Alumni Citation for her contributions to Christian
publishing. She is a speaker/teacher for Christian workshops, lectureships, retreats, and
writers’ conferences.
Mary
also served as co-leader of the Music Outreach Ministry of her 4,000-member
church for more than seventeen years. This ministry led their fellowship in
such forward-looking events as a cappella musical dramas, five mission-outreach
concert tours in more than eight countries, televised
community outreach events, and many other venues.
In
her spare time, Mary enjoys travel, collecting miniature and rare books, writing poetry and lyrics, and
singing. She works as a telecommuter from her home in Bedford, Texas, where she shares a home with her best friend and Christian sister, Charlotte Greeson, and two Shih Tzus named Jazz and Samson.
Photo of Mary and Jazz at the top of this page by M. K. Williams, Mansfield, Texas. Used by permission.
