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Mary Beth Ellis is a freelance writer living perilously on the Beltway edge of Washington, D.C. She has run BlondeChampagne.com since 2003.  Mary Beth has also been published on MSNBC.com, Dish Pronto, JamsBio, and FreelanceSwitch.com.

A native of Cincinnati, OH, Mary Beth obtained her undergraduate degree at Saint Mary’s College, and was the first SMC student invited to read at the University of Notre Dame’s Sophomore Literary Festival. Her vast and frightening array of day jobs after completing her MFA in nonfiction writing at Bennington College have included bodyguarding Jimmy Buffett, working in education at the Kennedy Space Center, and sports reporting for the Thoroughbred racing industry.  She currently teaches college, runs wine tastings, gives literary readings, and provides public education services for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at Udvar-Hazy.

Her work has appeared in two anthologies: Grotto Stories and Random House’s Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers.  Other credits include Smithsonian Air & Space, the Cincinnati Enquirer, Weber: The Contemporary West, Notre Dame Magazine, and many more. She was named the Erma Bombeck Humor Writers’ Workshop Writer of the Month in November 2006 and invited as a writer-in-residence at Casa Libre in the spring of 2007.