Mona Awad
Mona Awad is a Canadian novelist and short-story writer. Her debut book, "13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl", a novel (structured using linked short stories) about a woman's lifelong struggle with body image issues, won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2016. She was inspired to write the book because of her own experiences growing up and struggling with her own body image. In the "Los Angeles Times", Awad has been quoted as saying, she "made [music] playlists for every chapter" in "13 Ways of Looking  at a Fat Girl" because it helped her "immerse" herself in the story, helping her to better "access it." Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, she spent her teen years in Mississauga, Ontario, then studied English literature at York University and went on to earn a masters in English at the University of Edinburgh, an MFA at Brown University, and a PhD at the University of Denver. Her short fiction and non-fiction writing has been published in magazines including "McSweeney's", "The Walrus", "", "Post Road", "St. Petersburg Review", and "Maisonneuve". When Awad began writing as a columnist for "Maisonneuve , she used the pseudonym Veronica Tartley. Awad desires for her stories to provide readers with a sense of connection" so that "people [may] feel less alone." In 2017, Awad's short story "Woman Causes Avalanche" was published by the "L.A. Review of Books." Her next novel, "Bunny", was published in June, 2019, by Viking Press. "Bunny" tells the story of a girl named Samantha Mackey who goes to a prestigious graduate program at a New England's Warren University. There she finds herself entangled in the weird rituals lead by the "Bunnies" — her fellow students who are more than just  the clique that they seem on the surface. Her third novel, "All's Well", was released on August 3, 2021 by Simon & Schuster. She has lived in the US since 2009, currently in Boston.