Mona Awad

Mona Awad is a Canadian novelist and short-story writer.[1] 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,[2] won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award[3] and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2016.[4] She was inspired to write the book because of her experiences growing up and struggling with her own body image.[5] 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 and better "access it."[6]

Mona Awad
Born (1978-08-22) August 22, 1978
Montreal, Quebec
Occupationnovelist, short stories
NationalityCanadian
Period2010s
Notable works13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl and Bunny

She has worked as an assistant professor at Syracuse University since 2020.[7]

Biography

Awad was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec and she spent her teen years in Mississauga, Ontario.[1] She 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,[1] and a PhD at the University of Denver.[8] Awad's short fiction and non-fiction writing has been published in magazines including McSweeney's, The Walrus, Joyland, 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."[9]

In 2017, Awad's short story Woman Causes Avalanche[10] was published by the L.A. Review of Books.

Her next novel, Bunny, was published in June, 2019, by Viking Press.[11] Bunny tells the story of a girl named Samantha Mackey who attends a prestigious graduate program located in New England, at the fictional Warren University. There Samantha finds herself entangled in the weird rituals led by the "Bunnies" — her fellow students who are more than just the clique that they seem on the surface. It was optioned for film by Bad Robot Productions in 2023.[12][13]

Her third novel, All's Well, was released on August 3, 2021 by Simon & Schuster.[14]

She has lived in the US since 2009, currently in Syracuse, New York.

References
  1. "Mona Awad gives us 13 ways to look at 'fat girls'". Toronto Star, February 21, 2016.
  2. "Review: Mona Awad's 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl is beautifully told and profoundly sensitive". The Globe and Mail, February 19, 2016.
  3. "Mona Awad wins Amazon.ca First Novel Award". CBC Books, May 26, 2016.
  4. "Thien, Barwin, Donoghue make Giller Prize shortlist ". The Globe and Mail, September 26, 2016.
  5. "Mona Awad Wants You to Confront the Word "Fat"". ELLE. 2016-02-24. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  6. Graham, Latria (9 March 2016). "Mona Awad on her sharp-voiced debut, '13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  7. "Arts & Sciences: People: Faculty: Mona Awad". College of Arts & Sciences at Syracuse University. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
  8. "Mona Awad wins Amazon.ca First Novel Award: 'When I was writing the book, frankly, I never thought it would see the light of day'". The Globe and Mail, May 26, 2016.
  9. "We Do Adjust Our Reality for Other People: An Interview with Mona Awad". Electric Literature. 2016-03-02. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  10. "LARB Lit: Woman Causes Avalanche - Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  11. "28 works of Canadian fiction to watch for in spring 2019". CBC Books, January 25, 2019.
  12. Bernardi, Dan (4 April 2023). "Film Rights to Mona Awad's Novel 'Bunny' Purchased by Bad Robot Productions". Syracuse University News. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
  13. Roberts, Joe (18 March 2023). "Bunny: Everything We Know So Far About Bad Robot's Movie Adaptation". Slash Film. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
  14. Awad, Mona (August 3, 2021). All's Well. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-9821-6966-4.
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