Nora Shalaway Carpenter is an award-winning author, writing educator, and audiobook narrator. Her critically acclaimed debut novel The Edge of Anything centers mental health alongside the transformative power of friendship, and was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus, Bank Street, and A Mighty Girl. North Carolina Humanities named it their 2021 selection to the Library of Congress’s Discover Great Places Through Reading list. Her co-edited fiction anthology AB(solutely) NORMAL: Short Stories That Smash Mental Health Stereotypes was named to the prestigious Texas Library Association TAYSHAS state reading list and was selected as a 2024 Children’s Book Council Teacher favorite and Librarian favorite. Her fiction has won the Green Earth Book Award, the Whippoorwill Award for exemplary rural fiction, and the Nautilus Book Award Gold, which distinguishes “better books for a better world.” Her work has been written about in the New York Times, named to NPR’s Best Book of the Year list, and won distinction by the Junior Librarian Guild, among other honors.
Shalaway Carpenter holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, has served as faculty for the Highlights Foundation’s Whole Novel Workshop since 2021, and is the new registrar for the Kindling Words East symposium. A neurodivergent author with an invisible disability, she champions busting stereotypes of all kinds. Connect on her Substack, Resilient. Creative. Magick. and at www. noracarpenterwrites.com
