Mary Hunter Austin (September 9, 1868 - August 13, 1934) was an American writer. One of the early nature writers of the American Southwest, her classic The Land of Little Rain (1903) describes the fauna, flora and people - as well as evoking the mysticism and spirituality - of the region between the High Sierra and the Mojave Desert of southern California.Mary Hunter Austin was born on September 9, 1868 in Carlinville, Illinois (the fourth of six children) to George and Susannah (Graham) Hunter. She graduated from Blackburn College in 1888. Her family moved to California in the same year and established a homestead in the San Joaquin Valley. Mary married Stafford Wallace Austin on May 18, 1891 in Bakersfield, California. He was from Hawaii and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.