As a full professor at Cornell University, Maureen has taught for many years in the English Department’s Program in Creative Writing, in the MFA fiction degree program as well as undergraduate writing and literature classes. She also lives in Taos, New Mexico, where she hikes and bikes the high country. She is the author of four novels: Junebug; Walking After Midnight; Summertime; and Divining Blood. The novels take place in Iowa, on the Mississippi River, Nebraska and other stops around the Midwest. Maureen is also the author of short fiction, essays and monologues for actors. In Nancy Pearl's Book Lust, Walking After Midnight tops the list for Elvis-friendly novels. A personal essay, "Vickie's Pour House: A Soldier's Peace," published in The Antioch Review was a finalist for a National Magazine Award.  

       Maureen has taught writing workshops in public schools and in college summer programs at Cornell, the UNM Taos Summer Writers Conference, the Vermont MFA Program, and Kalamazoo College. Writing residencies include two years at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown; The MacDowell Colony; The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation; and Hawthornden International Center for Writers in Edinburgh. She holds a B.A. from the University of Denver and an M.F.A. degree from the Iowa Writers Workshop. Before beginning her career at Cornell, she was honored with a two-year position as Albert Schweitzer Fellow in the Humanities at the State University of New York, awarded by then-Schweitzer Chair Toni Morrison. At Cornell she received the Helen and Robert Appel Fellowship in the Humanities, which allowed for research abroad. A James Michener Award from the Copernicus Society encouraged work on her first novel. She has served as a judge for literary prizes and awards, including The Dayton Peace Prize.