About

I am Mary Ann de Stefano, an editor and writer with techie tendencies and a marketing bent who wants to help you believe in yourself and your writing.
MAD at 4 years old. These days I forgo the hat, heels, and dolly when I read.

MAD about Words helps writers by providing high-quality editorial services and by publishing the popular MAD’s Monday Muse. Services are described in detail here.

I named MAD about Words as a play on my initials and love for writing.

I am MAD about Words as in: “mad about jazz,” or “mad about the boy.” You know, enthusiastic about, passionate, ardent, fervent, avid, fanatical, devoted, infatuated, in love with, hot for, crazy, nuts, or wild about. Antonym: indifferent. (Something I am definitely not.) Just like you, I do battle with the twin demons of creative expression: uncertainty and resistance. That’s why I’m mad about nurturing creative and community spirit. My essays appear in Shifting Gears (Red Pepper Press), Orlando Sentinel, and The Florida Writer.


30+ years’ experience

  • 11+ years in publishing at Harcourt Brace/Academic Press
  • Independent writing consultant since 1993
  • Full-time freelance editor since 2005
  • Produced writing workshops with local and visiting writers, many in partnership with Kerouac House writers-in-residence, 2005-2021
  • Editor, The Florida Writer (the Florida Writer Association’s official magazine) since 2013
  • Rollins College, BA English & writing, magna cum laude
  • Studied with America’s foremost creativity coach, Eric Maisel
  • Continuing professional development & self-study

Memberships

  • Authors Guild
  • ACES: The Society for Editing
  • (AWP) Association of Writers & Writing Programs
  • Editorial Freelancers Association
  • Florida Authors & Publishers Association
  • Florida Writers Association
  • Southeast Writers Association

I have enjoyed a long relationship with the Florida Writers Association serving its motto:  “Writers Helping Writers.”

  • 2005 – Lifetime Member
  • 2007 – 2014, Created FWA eNews, FWA’s first electronic newsletter; served as editor
  • 2008 – 2015, Created & administrated FWA Network, a private online social networking site for members; served as administrator
  • 2011 – Received Vice President’s Award
  • 2012 – Received Vice President’s Award
  • 2013 – Present: Editor of The Florida Writer, responsible for solicitation and placement of editorial content and advertising, editing, graphic design, and mailing
  • 2014 – Present: Website developer and administrator
  • 2019 – Received President’s Award
  • 2021 – Received President’s Award
  • 2021 – 2022 Vice President, Administration & Membership
  • 2022 – Present: President

MAD about Words Partners with Kerouac House

396540_226243540805845_16865691_nFrom 2009 – 2020 the Jack Kerouac Project of Orlando and MAD about Words partnered to offer writers the opportunity to meet and write with the writer-in-residence at Kerouac House.

Kerouac House is a literary treasure. Jack Kerouac lived in a house in the College Park neighborhood of Orlando at the time On the Road made him a national sensation. And it was in this home that Kerouac wrote his follow-up, The Dharma Bums. The Kerouac House is now a living, literary tribute to one of the great American writers of the twentieth century.

The Kerouac Project provides six residencies a year to writers of any stripe or age, living anywhere in the world. Each residency consists of approximately a two-month stay in the house, and during their time many of the writers worked with us to provide a writing workshop opportunity. Part of the workshop fee went to support the house. Although we no longer produce the workshops there, we are happy to provide our support to Kerouac House, our local literary treasure.

There was also the time MAD about Words made a cameo appearance (well sort of)  in a movie about Sion Dayson and Kerouac house.

Thomas Thorspecken Analog Artist Digital World
© Thomas Thorspecken. Used by permission. Thomas Thorspecken, Analog Artist Digital World, sketched our “Non-Realistic Writing” workshop with Alicia Shandra Holmes at Kerouac