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Mary Garden was born in Whakatane, New Zealand in 1950.
She went to Waikato University & Hamilton Teachers College in 1966 from where she graduated with a B.Ed and a Teachers College Diploma.
After a year's teaching and obtaining a Diploma in Teaching from the NZ Department of Education, she spent a year doing post-graduate studies at the University of Auckland.
She abandoned these studies in 1973 to go to India where she spent 7 years exploring Eastern mysticism and becoming entangled with various gurus.
In 1980 she settled in Queensland, Australia, married, had two children and became an Australian citizen. She moved to Maleny in the Sunshine Coast hinterland in 1990. For four years she held a major role in Maleny's Black Possum Publishing Co-operative and worked on most of their community anthologies of poetry, cartoons, recipes, short stories and artwork.
She was the co-ordinator and production manager for their 1993 publication Flights of Fantasy; the production manager for the Black Possum Diary 1993: We are the world, we are the people and the co-editor for the Black Possum Diary 1992 - A Celebration of Life.
As well as her participation in the Black Possum Publishing Co-operative she was involved in the Crystal Waters Permaculture Village nestled in the beautiful Mary River Valley near Maleny. She owned a house there for seven years, ran the Sunday cafes at the Crystal Waters Kitchen for some of that time and became renown for her gourmet delights and the Xmas feasts (for over a hundred people) she and her children provided for the community.
Since 1999 she has divided her time between Kookaburra Park Eco-village in the Wide Bay Burnett region and her (renovated) fishing shack that fronts on to 16 km of unspoilt and mostly deserted beach.
She is particularly interested in exploring and investigating alternative lifestyles and eco-villages as well as the ever-persistent need for gurus and New Age 'fixes'. And writing about these things.
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