MARY KAY BLAKELY joined the Journalism School faculty in September, 1997, and teaches Advanced Writing in the magazine sequence. A contributing editor to Ms. magazine since 1981 and former Hers columnist for The New York Times, she is the author of the critically acclaimed Wake Me When It’s Over and American Mom. Her essays on social and political issues have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mother Jones, LIFE, Vogue, Family Circle, Self, Parents, Newsday, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Lear’s, Glamour, Working Woman as well as other national publications. Her work has been collected in fourteen writing anthologies and published in Australia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Japan.

Blakely is on the National Advisory Board for Women’s Enews, the National Writer’s Union and MOMbo, a syndicated radio program. She has been on the Board of Directors for the Journalism and Women’s Symposium (JAWS) and is currently serving on its Minority Mentor Program. She received the EMMA (Exceptional Merit Media Award) and Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Her television appearances include news commentaries on the Today Show, Oprah, Larry King Live, CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose, C-SPAN, Good Morning America, CNN and other news programs.

In 2000, Blakely established the Journalism School’s partnership with the New School University and helped launch the summer program in New York, which provides MU students with internships, professional experience and a multi-media course of study in Manhattan. Her writing students regularly contribute feature stories, essays and literary journalism to the Missourian and Vox, a weekly news magazine in Columbia, as well as national monthly magazines. The students’ radio commentaries have also aired on National Public Radio and Pacifica Network News.