Mary Fons is a writer, editor, host, and presenter who specializes in American quilts and the life of quilts in popular culture. Prior to serving as editor in chief of Quiltfolk magazine from 2017-2021, she was editor and creative director of Quilty magazine. She has hosted 300 episodes of how-to quilting content on public television (Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting) and on YouTube (Quilty). Mary’s writing on quilts has been published in Modern Patchwork, Curated Quilts, Quiltfolk, and Blanket Statements (AQSG), and in her Quilt Scout column for Quilts, Inc. She is a popular lecturer at events such as QuiltCon and the Birmingham Quilt Festival, and her quilt history and culture livestream, ‘Quilt Nerd’ broadcasts on Twitch. She has worked as a quilt consultant for companies including Sesame Workshop/HBO. Mary served for six years on the advisory board for the International Quilt Museum and joined the board of American Quilt Study Group in 2023. She holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago with her husband Eric and her favorite quilts are the pictorial ones with animals on them but you can’t really tell what the animals are.