Maureen Tolman Flannery has grounded her poetics in the various landscapes of her life experience: Wyoming, where she grew up in a sheep-ranching family and has recently returned to rescue and restore two historic log cabins, Mexico, where she became infatuated with the rich complexity of its culture; and Chicago, where she and her husband of 52 years settled to raise their family of three sons and a daughter.

She received a Literary Award from the Illinois Arts Council and was thrice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Maureen has received multiple awards in Poets and Patrons contests over the years, as well as in the Joanne Hirshfield Memorial Award, WyoPoets and New Millennium Writings contests.

She earned her BA and MA degrees in English Literature from Creighton University, and taught English as a Foreign Language for thirty years. She has been active in end-of-life care and support of home funerals and green burials.

She has published over 500 poems in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Her own volumes of poetry are Following the Cabin Home, Navigating by Expectant Stars, Tunnel Into Morning, Destiny Whispers to the Beloved, Ancestors in the Landscape, Beloved Quietus, Secret of the Rising Up, Remembered into Life, and Snow and Roses, a chapbook about the White Rose resistance in Nazi Germany.