Wendy Mass (edit name/settings)

Wendy Mass (born January 17, 1967), is an award-winning author of young-adult novels and children's books. Her most successful book was A Mango-Shaped Space which won the American Library Association (ALA) Schneider Family Book Award for Middle School in 2004. Her book Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life won a Peoples' Choice Award.

Born in in Livingston, New Jersey, Mass's favorite subjects in school were reading and writing. Wendy worked at town libraries and even wrote her friends college applications in high school. As a child she would compete with friends to see who could read the most books; while she did for fun, it helped develop her skills to become a writer. Mass's first story, co-written by her two siblings when she was in junior high, starred her pet that somehow turned into a goat and destroyed the neighborhood.

In high school Mass worked at local public libraries and continued to work on her writing skills. She took writing classes at school, and decided that writing was the career path she wished to take.

As an English Major at Tufts University, Mass continued working on developing her writing skills. After graduation she moved to Los Angeles, where she tried her hand at a multitude of writing businesses, including working as a literary agent, at a television casting company, editor of a magazine, and a script reader for a film producer. Mass however found none of these jobs ideal, and realised she wanted to do something that would inspire pre-teens, teens, and adults.

It was this process that allowed Mass to decide that she wanted to write books for children, teens, and adults. She moved back to her hometown in New Jersey, and while writing worked as a book editor operating out of New York City and Connecticut. After six months Mass tried to get her first book published, but despite approaching many book publishers she did not achieve her aim. Following this, Mass decided to start out her career with educational books for teens, using that as an entry into what she really wanted to do, which was writing children's fiction books.

Over the next six years, Mass wrote seventeen successful educational books for teens. Mass won the American Library Association (ALA) Schneider Family Book Award for her children's fiction book A Mango-Shaped Space in 2004.<1> She won the American Library Association Award (best books for the teen age selection), New York Public, and New York Public Library Best Books for the teenage designation, Peoples' Choice Award, Great Lakes Book Award and Michigan State award.

As of 2008, Mass lives in New Jersey with her twins Griffin and Chloe, her husband Mike, and her cat Zoey. Her favorite food is candy and she collects candy wrappers.