Mary Edwards Wertsch,
Children of the Fortress: America's Most Invisible Culture

Mary Edwards Wertsch is the author of the nonfiction book, Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress (Harmony Books, 1991; Aletheia Publications, 1996), which examines the military as a home culture for children and sets out the positive and negative psychological legacies of that life. As the daughter of a career Army infantry officer, she lived in 20 houses and attended 12 schools by the age of 18. She has given talks on the subject of military culture in the United States and abroad. Her professional background is in journalism, and she lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband and two sons. She currently is working on a companion guide to her book for use by discussion groups. She also is compiling an anthology of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about military childhood by established writers who are military brats.