A Mango Shaped Space

1. A Mango Shaped Space By Rachel Gilotti and Rose Sebastian

2. Wendy Mass

3. Author’s Education • Wendy Mass received an education in Tufts University where she graduated with a degree in English. • Wendy Mass also received as degree in English in California State University • Wendy Mass attended Drew University where she received a degree in doctor of letters. • Wendy Mass moved to California to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. She later then attended a graduate school, where she made a decision to write for children and young adults. • She moved back east where she started her career in publishing and received the opportunity to write non-fiction books.

4. Author’s Current Life • Wendy Mass is currently married to a man named Michael. • She is the proud mother of twins. • Her hobbies and interests are photography, reading, music, genealogy, and archaeology.

5. Author’s Current Career • Wendy Mass is currently a writer. • She did, however, have many jobs in the past. She worked variously for a literary agent, a television casting company, as a script reader for a film producer, and as a book editor at publishing houses in New York, NY, and CT Cofounder, with Laura Hoffman, of Writes of Passage (literary journal for teenagers)

6. Awards For A Mango Shaped Space • “Mass won the Schneider Family Book award for her children’s fiction book A Mango Shaped Space in 2003.” • She also won the Booksense Choice, People’s Choice Awards, New York Public Library Best Books for the Teen Age Designation award, Great Lakes Book Award, Michigan State Award, and several state reader awards for Mango Shaped Space. • An overall award she has received for all her written works is the American Library Association Award (best books for the teen age selection)

7. Author’s Inspiration for Mango Shaped Space • “You also have to do a lot of research on the topic that you are talking about, especially if it’s something very scientific and technical, like A Mango Shaped Space since it talked about a disease called synthesia.” • “I didn’t know anyone with the disease synthesia before I started writing the book, but as I went along I met many. Just start asking your friends the colors of various letters and I bet some can tell you!” • Above were two quotes from Wendy Mass about her inspiration for A Mango Shaped Space.

8. Critic’s Thoughts On A Mango Shaped Space • “A Publishers Weekly contributor remarked that the book’s well defined characterization, natural sounding dialogue, and concrete imagery allows readers to feel Mia’s emotions and see through her kaleidoscope world.” • “Reviewing Mass’s book for School Journal, Eva Mitnick stated that “Mia’s voice is believable and her description of the vivid world she experiences, filled with slashes, blurs, and streaks of color, is fascinating.”

9. Author’s Inspiration For Becoming A Writer • “It really goes back to reading under the covers with a flashlight since I was eight. I just loved reading so much, and eventually I wanted to write my own stories. Now my four-year-old reads in the middle of the night with her flashlight and neither my husband nor I can stand to ask her to stop reading and go to sleep.” • Above was Wendy Mass’s response to the question Why did you want to become a writer? Asked by Book Diva.

10. Author’s Reason Behind Writing For Teens • Mass explained, “When I was at the age, reading was such a huge part of my life. I wouldn’t be the same person today if I didn’t have those wonderful stories living inside my head. It seems to me that those years, between ten and fourteen, are when kids figure out what kind of person they want to be both inside and outside, and how they want to live their life.” • She added, “We can experience things in books that we can never experience in life, but these experiences show us what is possible in our own life.”

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