🎯 Where Should I Start?
ⓘ About Monica Wood
Monica Wood is a bestselling and award winning novelist, memoirist, and writer of short stories. She is particularly famous for writing the Ernie’s Ark, One in a Million Boy, Secret Language, and several other standalone books. Author Wood was born in Mexico, Maine, in a family of devout Catholics of the Irish descent. The members of her family used to work in paper mills when she was small. Wood’s maternal and paternal grandparents were descendents of Canada, who used to follow the storytelling tradition. Wood believes that it is this tradition of her grandparents that has helped her to become a noteworthy novelist. Author Wood and her sisters were the first ones from their family to attend college.
All Book Series by Monica Wood
Characters & Viewpoint
Series opener · book 1 of 7 · published 1988 Anthology · Orson Scott Card
Conflict, Action and Suspense
Book 5 of 7 · published 1994 Anthology · William Noble
The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays
Series opener · book 1 of 10 · published 1981 Anthology · Guy Davenport
On Becoming an American Writer
Book 2 of 10 · published 2023 Anthology · James McPherson,Anthony Walton
Better Than Sane: Tales from a Dangling Girl
Book 6 of 10 · published 2023 Anthology · Alison Rose
The Orchard: A Memoir
Book 7 of 10 · published 2023 Anthology · Jane Brox,Adele Crockett Robertson,Betsy Robertson Cramer
Stay Here with Me: A Memoir
Book 8 of 10 · published 2024 Anthology · Robert Olmstead
In the Merrimack Valley: A Farm Trilogy
Latest in the series · book 10 of 10 · published 2024 Anthology · Jane Brox
Coming of Age in a Hardscrabble World
Latest in the series · book 5 of 5 · published 2019
? Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Monica Wood?
Monica Wood is a bestselling and award winning novelist, memoirist, and writer of short stories. She is particularly famous for writing the Ernie's Ark, One in a Million Boy, Secret Language, and several other standalone books. Author Wood was born in Mexico, Maine, in a family of devout Catholics of the Irish descent.
Which Monica Wood series should I start with?
The best place to start is the Nonpareil series, the earliest of Monica Wood's multi-book series: it opens with The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays (1981) and runs to 10 books across 1981–2024, ending with In the Merrimack Valley: A Farm Trilogy (2024). Monica Wood's other series stand alone, so they can be read in any order.
How many books has Monica Wood written?
Monica Wood has 33 books catalogued in this guide, published between 1981 and 2024. 17 of them belong to 2 named series — the largest being the Nonpareil series with 10 books — and 16 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.
In what order should Monica Wood's series be read?
Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. Monica Wood's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are Nonpareil (1981–2024, 10 books) and Elements of Fiction Writing (1988–1995, 7 books).
How are Monica Wood's books organised into series?
This guide splits Monica Wood's 33 books into 2 named series and 16 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: Nonpareil (10 books, 1981–2024); Elements of Fiction Writing (7 books, 1988–1995).