Mara Purl

Mara Purl is the best-selling author of The Milford-Haven Novels, which, collectively, have won 30 literary awards. Her serial novels are uniquely structured to suit new media formats and have reopened a trail blazed by Charles Dickens. Yet it is with women Mara has truly found her U.S. market. She has a loyal following in the Women’s Fiction genre, and has become a spokeswoman both for authors and for readers of Women’s Fiction.

Mara’s novels are based on her successful radio drama Milford-Haven, U.S.A.,the first environmental radio soap opera, and the only American radio soap ever licensed and broadcast by the BBC, where the show reached an audience of 4.5 million listeners throughout the U.K. Along with producing sixty episodes of her BBC show, Mara also produces and performs audio books. She won the silver Benjamin Franklin and the gold USA Book News Audio Fiction awards for performing the first two of her own novels. And most recently, she was awarded the San Francisco Book Festival Gold Audio Fiction award for her performance of Spa Deadly by Louise Gaylord.

Purl is also the co-author, with Erin Gray, of Act Right: a Manual for the On-Camera Actor. It’s also an award-winner, and the authors are working on its second revised edition. Mara’s screen-writing includes The Meridian Factor, co-written with Verne Nobles, 150 radio plays, scripts for Guiding Light, and a television adaptation of Milford-Haven co-written with Katherine Shirek Doughtie.

As a journalist, Mara's writing credits include two cover stories for Rolling Stone, staff writing with the Financial Times (of London), and an Associated Press assignment to cover the Apollo Soyuz mission, where she was the youngest reporter ever to win the NASA pool position in Mission Control. She is a member of the Authors Guild and of the Writers Guild West.

As an actress, Mara’s regular role on the TV soap opera Days Of Our Lives opened the door for her to create her own soap. Mara was awarded the 2003 Peak Award for performing her one-woman play (co-written with Sydney Swire) Mary Shelley - In Her Own Words.

Mara was named Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles County Commission for Women.