​​Part fictive narrative steeped in the historical, part epistolary record, and part songbook of spirituals, Letters to Littles’ Mills gathers a cumulative power as it weaves together seemingly disparate stylistic elements to render another century awash in moral (or immoral) complexity and violence. Dunn has drawn a local habitation in cadences that recreate its people, its customs, and its enduring legacy of grief.    —Michael Waters

In Letters to Littles’ Mills, a trinity of angles casts an indelible spell. Mary Anna Dunn not only allows raw history to breathe again, but also conceptualizes it and re-makes it so that we can see clear through to its frailties and follies. Sentiment, and not sentimentality, abounds. Anyone searching for solid ways to come to terms with America’s haunted past will find this book bracing, rewarding, and strangely beautiful.       
                                                                                         -- Douglas Nordfors

​In a work built around real-life words taken from spirituals and the letters of her ancestors, Mary Anna Dunn repositions the languages of a dark time in poems that confront the reader. Dunn’s brilliant sense for sound and rhythm will take you, on every line, through every word, into thought and reflection.                                                                            --John Most

Journals where Mary Anna's writing has appeared include Tar River Poetry  Inkwell, Portside,  and New Millennium Writings. Release of Letters to Littles Mills (Finishing Line Press) is scheduled for February 12.  Mary Anna is the director of The Enrichment Alliance of Virginia, an educational non-profit focused on opening enrichment opportunities to under-served children and youth.

Sample Poems
Response
​Mourning Undone
​In the Morning, After a Flood
​The Hat Poem

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