Mary Caroline Richards (Idaho, 1916–Pennsylvania, 1999) described herself as a teacher, writer, ceramicist, and poet. In 1945, after earning a Ph.D. in English from the University of Berkeley, she joined the faculty of the legendary Black Mountain College, where she founded Black Mountain Press with her writing and literature students. M. C Richards headed the faculty from 1949 to 1951, returning in 1953 to study ceramics and sculpture. Interested in community life, she joined the Gate Hill Cooperative in Stony Point, known as “The Land.” There she shared a studio with the ceramist Karen Karnes for ten years and wrote her best-known work, Centering: in Pottery, Poetry and the Person (1962), a countercultural classic published by Wesleyan University Press in which Richards displays a profound interdisciplinary thought that links the potter's craft, poetry and creative processes with the inner life of the individual: centering the clay on the wheel becomes a metaphor for centering oneself. Alias ​​brings to its public this fascinating work translated for the first time into Spanish in the voice of Eva Cruz Yáñez.

M. C. Richards maintained her beloved work as a teacher until her death in 1999, following the influence of Rudolf Steiner. Among her contributions are also her translation of Le Théatre et son double, which introduced Antonin Artaud to the American avant-garde scene in 1958, as well as her works The Crossing Point. Selected Talks and Writings (1973) and Toward Wholeness: Rudolf Steiner Education in America (1980).

“With an astonishing Zen-like blend of jokes, proverbs, anecdotes, poems (her own), folk tales, myths, and personal experiences, Richards delves directly and disturbingly into the inert parts of our being, which we suddenly find vulnerable, mysterious, and alive.” –Dorothy Van Ghent, Carleton Miscellany.