Monica Wood is a novelist, memoirist, and playwright. She is the 2024 winner of the Sara Josepha Hale award, honoring contributions to the literary arts in New England. Her most recent novel, How to Read a Book is a national bestseller about a chance encounter at a bookstore, exploring redemption, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories. Her novel, The One-in-a-Million Boy, has been published in 22 languages in 30 countries and won a 2017 Nautilus Award (Gold) and the New England Society Book Award. She is also the author of When We Were the Kennedys, a New England bestseller, Oprah magazine summer-reading pick, and winner of the May Sarton Memoir Award and the 2016 Maine Literary Award. Her novel Any Bitter Thing was an ABA bestseller and Book Sense Top Ten pick. Her other fiction includes Ernie’s Ark, which has been excerpted on NPR’s “Selected Shorts” and selected by several towns and cities as their “One Book, One Community” read; My Only Story, a finalist for the Kate Chopin Award; and Secret Language, her first novel. Her widely anthologized short stories have won a Pushcart Prize and been featured on public radio. She also writes books for writers and teachers. Her nonfiction has appeared in Oprah, New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Parade, and many other publications. Her first play, Papermaker, debuted at Portland Stage in an extended run, its bestselling play ever. Her second play, The Half-Light, debuted at Portland Stage in 2019.
Monica was born in Maine, New England to an Irish Catholic family, and worked as a guidance counselor and in a nursing home before becoming a full-time writer. She lives in Maine with her husband.
