Hole In The Middle

Description: 'Dazzling!' Kelly LinkMorgan Stone was born with a hole in her middle. A perfectly smooth patch of nothing where a something should be. After seventeen years of fear and shame, doctors and nurses, 'peculiar' not 'perfect', she has had enough of hiding. One night, among a sea of bodies and lost in a moment of blissful abandon, she finally bares all. A few photos uploaded to social media is all it takes to create a media frenzy. Overnight, Morgan becomes #holegirl. And then she meets a boy who is literally her perfect match. They could be each other's cure. But can he truly make her 'whole'? Feisty, feminist and downright different, Hole in the Middle is the story of what happens when a girl who is anything but 'normal' confronts a world obsessed with body image and celebrity. 'Kendra Fortmeyer's debut is more heart than holes, creatively brilliant, wacky and wise. An author to watch!' Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock, author of the Carnegie Medal-shortlisted The Smell of Other People's Houses
Review: The magical realist element allows for a sharp but never preachy take on body image, romance and internet culture, most delightfully when strangers speak up about their own "holes", having "found an empowering metaphor for their lives" in the narrator. An optimistic ending is hard-won rather than saccharine. With this debut, Fortmeyer establishes herself as a writer to watch. * Irish Times * Kendra Fortmeyer's debut is more heart than holes, creatively brilliant, wacky and wise. An author to watch! * Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock, author of the Carnegie Medal-shortlisted The Smell of Other People's Houses * Dazzling, one hundred percent believable, and laugh-out-loud funny. Kendra Fortmeyer has an admirably weird brain * Kelly Link *


Author Biography: Kendra Fortmeyer grew up in the lushly magic swamp-woods of North Carolina. She now lives and writes in Austin, Texas, where she received an MFA in fiction from the New Writer's Project. A former teacher and youth librarian (and forever feminist), she's had the great joy of working with heaps of hilarious, brilliant and wonderful teens, and is passionate about giving their voices a home in her work. She's worked as a wilderness ranger in the Blue Ridge Mountains, tried her hand at blacksmithing, and drinks an absurd amount of tea.A recipient of a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Kendra won a 2017 Pushcart Prize for her story "Things I Know to Be True" and she is a member of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop class of 2016.