William P. "Wil" Mara (born 1966) [1] is an American author of more than a hundred books, [1] [2] covering a variety of topics and genres, both fiction and non-fiction. A prolific author of children's books, including numerous biographies for young readers, he has also written seven novels for adults.
Since the mid 1990s, Mara has written scores of books for children and young adults, published mainly by Capstone Press, Children's Press, Marshall Cavendish, and Cherry Lake. The genres and topics range from explanatory science books, and explorations of activities or places, to histories and biographies. [1] Since 2019 he has published several books of children's fiction with supernatural elements, under the rubric "Twisted," issued by Enslow Publishing. [3]
His first novel for an adult audience, Wave, which was released in 2005, chronicles a coastal island community's reaction to an oncoming tsunami. [4] The book eventually became a critical and commercial success, winning a 2005 New Jersey Notable Book Award [5] and establishing Mara in the field of popular international fiction. Mara's next two books, The Draft and The Cut, published in October 2006 and October 2007 by St. Martin's Press, were part of a football-themed "NFL" series. [1] [6] In October 2012, Macmillan Publishing issued Mara's second disaster thriller, The Gemini Virus, which was cited on Amazon.com's "Best New Medical Thrillers" list for 2012. [1] A third novel in this genre, Fallout, about a nuclear disaster, appeared in 2017. [7]
Mara's novel Frame 232, published in 2013, takes its inspiration from the historical assassination of John F. Kennedy; it features the billionaire and detective Jason Hammond, as he attempts to help and protect a young woman, Sheila Baker, who inherits from her mother evidence that sheds new light on the events. [1] That book was followed in 2017 by Nevada Testament, another historical fiction featuring the protagonist Jason Hammond, this time in a story about a lost will of the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. [7]
Mara was raised on the Jersey Shore. Since 1997 he has lived in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. [7]
Judith Blume is an American writer of children's, young adult, and adult fiction. Blume began writing in 1959 and has published more than 26 novels. Among her best-known works are Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (1970), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), Deenie (1973), and Blubber (1974). Blume's books have significantly contributed to children's and young adult literature. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
Carl Hiaasen is an American journalist and novelist. He began his career as a newspaper reporter and by the late 1970s had begun writing novels in his spare time, both for adults and for middle grade readers. Two of his novels have been made into feature films, and one has been made into a TV series.
Genre fiction, also known as formula fiction or popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
Eloise Jarvis McGraw was an American author of children's books and young adult novels.
Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group, a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles.
Alice Hoffman is an American novelist and young-adult and children's writer, best known for her 1995 novel Practical Magic, which was adapted for a 1998 film of the same name. Many of her works fall into the genre of magic realism and contain elements of magic, irony, and non-standard romances and relationships.
Young adult literature (YA) is typically written for readers aged 12 to 18 and includes most of the themes found in adult fiction, such as friendship, substance abuse, alcoholism, and sexuality. Stories that focus on the challenges of youth may be further categorized as social or coming-of-age novels.
Publishers Weekly (PW) is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of Book Publishing and Bookselling". With 51 issues a year, the emphasis today is on book reviews.
Holly Black is an American writer and editor best known for her children's and young adult fiction. Her most recent work is the New York Times bestselling young adult Folk of the Air series. She is also well known for The Spiderwick Chronicles, a series of children's fantasy books she created with writer and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and her debut trilogy of young adult novels officially called the Modern Faerie Tales. Black has won a Lodestar Award, a Nebula Award, and a Newbery Honor.
Lois Duncan Steinmetz, known as Lois Duncan, was an American writer, novelist, poet, and journalist. She is best known for her young-adult novels, and has been credited by historians as a pioneering figure in the development of young-adult fiction, particularly in the genres of horror, thriller, and suspense.
Suzanne Collins is an American author and television writer. She is best known as the author of the young adult dystopian book series The Hunger Games. She is also the author of the children's fantasy series The Underland Chronicles.
Samuel Kimball Merwin Jr. was an American mystery fiction writer, editor and science fiction author. His pseudonyms included Elizabeth Deare Bennett, Matt Lee, Jacques Jean Ferrat and Carter Sprague.
Elaine Marie Alphin was an American author of more than thirty books for children and young adults.
Andrew James Hartley is a British-born American novelist, who writes fiction for children and adults. He also writes thrillers as Andrew Hart.
Simon Rose is a Canadian author of books for children and young adults, best known for his science fiction and fantasy novels.
Connie Ann Kirk is an American author. Her books cover a range of subjects including concise literary biographies for students, bio-critical literary studies, and references. She has also written a fiction picture book for children. Her articles, both in print and online, address topics in literature, poetry, popular culture, history, education, art, television, science, sports, and film.
Islamic fiction is a genre of fiction. Islamic fiction works expound and illustrate an Islamic world view, put forth some explicit Islamic lessons in their plot and characterizations, or serve to make Muslims visible. Islamic fiction is different than Muslim fiction, which may refer to any and all works of fiction produced by Muslims.
Brian Falkner is a novelist who was born in Auckland, New Zealand. He has one brother and two sisters. He attended The University of Auckland and studied Computer Science. He attained a diploma of journalism from the Auckland University of Technology then worked for Radio New Zealand. He moved to the South Island of New Zealand where he resided until the age of 26 when he returned to Auckland. His first novel for children was published in 2003. He has received a number of prestigious awards including the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Science Fiction.
Enslow Publishing is an American publisher of books and eBooks founded by Ridley M. Enslow Jr. in 1976. Enslow publishes educational nonfiction, fiction, historical fiction, and trade books for children and young adults. Their books are intended to be sold to school and public libraries.
The Independent Publisher Book Awards, also styled as the IPPY Awards, are a set of annual literary awards for independently published books. They are the longest-running unaffiliated contest open exclusively to independent presses. The IPPY Awards are open to authors and publishers worldwide who produce books written in English and intended for the North American market. According to the IPPY website, the awards 'reward those who exhibit the courage, innovation, and creativity to bring about change in the world of publishing.'