Mary Kate Allen is an award-winning author and screenwriter who believes the best stories are the ones told with equal parts heart, humor, and hard-earned truth. A communications pro by trade, she holds a B.S. in Journalism from Georgia Southern University and an M.A. from the University of Georgia—degrees that taught her how to craft a clean sentence, ask better questions, and appreciate the power of choosing the right details.

Her debut memoir, How to Care for Your Village Asshole, winner of the 2025 Book Pipeline Unpublished Author Contest’s Nonfiction Category, blends dark comedy with raw emotional honesty. The book follows the chaotic, terrifying, and unexpectedly funny aftermath of her husband’s accidental shooting during a hunting trip—a story that explores marriage, resilience, Southern family dynamics, and the kind of love that shows up with casseroles, sarcasm, and a spare phone charger.

Mary Kate writes about life the way she lives it: with grit, grace, and the occasional expletive. Whether on the page or in her screenwriting work, she gravitates toward stories that reveal the humanity in catastrophe, the humor in heartbreak, and the strength that comes from letting your village carry you when you’d rather act like you have it all together.

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