Mary Shelden (she/her) is a lifelong, second-generation Unitarian Universalist and credentialed religious educator (CRE-A, 2020). She has attended eight UU congregations over the course of her life: two as a young person, four as a lay-leader, and two (UC Evanston and Countryside UU in Palatine) serving as a religious professional, now serving on the MidAmerica Regional Nominating Committee as a member of Church of the Larger Fellowship. Her decades-long academic career has focused primarily on identity and vocational development through writing for a broadly diverse array of students; these days she teaches writing at Aurora University. She has published work on UUs Louisa May Alcott, Sallie Holley, and the Transcendentalist circle, and also has a significant background in both UU and academic curriculum development and adult pedagogy. She and Margie, her beloved partner of 25+ years, live across the road from Lake in the Hills Fen, a 400+-acre preserve of restored prairie inhabited by foxes, coyotes, deer, and myriad birds, including a venerable nesting pair of sandhill cranes, on land ancestral to the Ho-Chunk, Kickapoo, Miami, Peoria, and Sioux nations. They have a beloved daughter, Marjorie (third-generation UU), a son-in-law, Jake, and a beautiful grandbeagle, Apple, with magnificent velvet ears.