Bowker Biography:
Emma Pagano

 

Imagine being thirteen at the outset of the second great War, living in Paris with your mother and sister, recovering from the loss of a beloved father several years before……

Then imagine that your mother leaves to do the shopping, and never returns…..

Only thirteen when she wrote Heart of a Girl, Emma Pagano has delighted editors and readers alike with her poignant, lyrical prose and her almost magical touch with a story. Living in a small village on the Italian Riviera, Pagano began Heart of a Girl, her first novel, as a school assignment, a short story for a regional contest. While some of her classmates struggled to put words onto paper, Pagano had just the opposite problem.

“I just started envisioning different situations for my main character and couldn’t stop,” the young author relates. “When I got home from school I jumped onto the computer and just started writing and writing. Well, it grew and grew, and I actually couldn’t submit it to the contest because it was too long.”

Studying WWII in school at the time, and a recent visit to Paris from her hometown on the Italian Riviera fuelled her imagination; extensive research gave her the ability to include a richly detailed, very authentic backdrop to the emotional story. Written entirely in first person, Pagano makes a point of never giving away the name of the narrator.

“I wanted the reader to be drawn into the story as much as possible, to identify with the girl in the story,” Pagano explains.

The young author, still only sixteen, divides her time since the publication of Heart of a Girl between classes and the busy social life of a normal teen. Fluent in Italian and English, conversant in French, she studies at a pre-university Liceo, and has already drawn attention from several major Italian newspapers for her writing. When her high school career is complete she looks forward to attending university in London, and dreams of coming to New York one day to live and continue her writing.

Heart of a Girl is her first novel.

Heart of a Girl (ISBN 0-9729518-1-4, Retail List $21.95) is available through Baker & Taylor Books, Partners Book Distributing and American Wholesale Book Company, as well as direct from the publisher, Olive Tree Books, either online at www.epcitybooks.com or by calling (734) 945-2189. Publisher discounts orders 45% – 55% off retail list.

 

Olive Tree Books (an imprint of El Paso City Books, LLC): www.epcitybooks.com
Emma Pagano: epagano@epcitybooks.com
Orders: orders@epcitybooks.com

EPCB Phone: (734) 945-2189
EPCB Fax: (734) 527-6063
Mailing Address: El Paso City Books, LLC & Olive Tree Books
P.O. Box 156
Chelsea, MI 48118