Author Biography

Kendra Fortmeyer received her MLS and MFA in fiction from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2016 she won a substantial grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation for her writing; she is a 2017 Pushcart Prize winner for her story "Things I Know to Be True," and she's a graduate of the Clarion SFF Writers' Workshop class of 2016. Her short fiction has been published widely. Hole in the Middle is her first novel. She lives in Austin.

Review

Praise for Hole in the Middle

"Fortmeyer's humor, sweetness and focus on sexual and medical consent are winning."
—The New York Times

"Dazzling, one hundred percent believable, and laugh-out-loud funny. Kendra Fortmeyer has an admirably weird brain." 
—Kelly Link, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Get in Trouble

"An unabashedly feminist book [that] speaks directly to issues like body image and sexuality."
—The Rumpus

"Incredibly different from most contemporary books that you see on bookstore shelves . . . Highly recommended, as the story is just too lovely to miss out on."
—The Nerd Daily

"[A] powerful, witty, and funny tale, which integrates a sprinkle of magical realism into the mix."
—Publishers Weekly

"An empowering, timely feminist read about bodily autonomy and one young woman's fight to keep control of hers."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Fortmeyer's debut is a delightful blend of magical realism, body positivity, and feminism that raises the issue of whether we can be complete in ourselves."
—Booklist

"Hole in the Middle is poetic and peculiar: a story about discovering yourself in all your strange excesses and missing parts and learning how to show them to the world." 
—Heidi Heilig, bestselling author of The Girl from Everywhere
 
"Kendra Fortmeyer's debut is more heart than holes, creatively brilliant, wacky and wise. An author to watch!"
—Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock, William C. Morris finalist and author of The Smell of Other People's Houses
 
"In this wildly imaginative page turner, Fortmeyer manages to sneak wisdom in with levity, profundity in with hilarity, and believability in with magic. She is a glowing talent to watch and follow."
—Karim Dimechkie, author of Lifted by the Great Nothing

"Intriguing and innovative . . . The magical realist element allows for a sharp but never preachy take on body image, romance and internet culture . . . With this debut, Fortmeyer establishes herself as a writer to watch."
—The Irish Times

"I loved it . . . This is a book that teenagers actually need to read."
—Love YA Like Crazy Podcast

"I was blown away by Kendra's writing from page one."
—Reading, Writing and Me blog

Review Quote

Praise for Hole in the Middle "Fortmeyer's humor, sweetness and focus on sexual and medical consent are winning." --The New York Times " Dazzling, one hundred percent believable, and laugh-out-loud funny. Kendra Fortmeyer has an admirably weird brain." --Kelly Link, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Get in Trouble "An unabashedly feminist book [that] speaks directly to issues like body image and sexuality." --The Rumpus "Incredibly different from most contemporary books that you see on bookstore shelves . . . Highly recommended, as the story is just too lovely to miss out on." --The Nerd Daily "[A] powerful, witty, and funny tale, which integrates a sprinkle of magical realism into the mix." --Publishers Weekly "An empowering, timely feminist read about bodily autonomy and one young woman's fight to keep control of hers." --Kirkus Reviews "Fortmeyer's debut is a delightful blend of magical realism, body positivity, and feminism that raises the issue of whether we can be complete in ourselves." --Booklist " Hole in the Middle is poetic and peculiar: a story about discovering yourself in all your strange excesses and missing parts and learning how to show them to the world." --Heidi Heilig, bestselling author of The Girl from Everywhere "Kendra Fortmeyer's debut is more heart than holes, creatively brilliant, wacky and wise. An author to watch!" --Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock, William C. Morris finalist and author of The Smell of Other People's Houses "In this wildly imaginative page turner, Fortmeyer manages to sneak wisdom in with levity, profundity in with hilarity, and believability in with magic. She is a glowing talent to watch and follow." --Karim Dimechkie, author of Lifted by the Great Nothing "Intriguing and innovative . . . The magical realist element allows for a sharp but never preachy take on body image, romance and internet culture . . . With this debut, Fortmeyer establishes herself as a writer to watch." --The Irish Times "I loved it . . . This is a book that teenagers actually need to read." --Love YA Like Crazy Podcast "I was blown away by Kendra's writing from page one." --Reading, Writing and Me blog

Excerpt from Book

Here are the options for a girl like me: Option A: Not mention it on the first date, or the second or third. We get to know each other, laugh, accidentally-on-purpose brush each other''s shoulders. We go to a movie and say stupid things during the dramatic scenes, and I look over and notice that you''re crying, and you look over and notice me noticing you crying, and we both pretend not to notice that the other person is noticing these things, but you take my hand, quietly and gratefully. A fondness begins to well. A language begins to form, a gauze-webbed network of inside jokes. We text each other and are paralyzed with terror from the moment we hit send until the phone buzzes back and our hearts start to beat again. Our friends get sick of us. The world takes on a brightness that it only does for the specially loved. I start to wonder if you are The One, and I can see, gleaming in your eyes, the kernel of the notion that I am The One, too. At some point you want to take the next step. The Big Step. Maybe we are at your house; maybe your parents are out of town; maybe you make some dumb excuse about showing me something in your bedroom and I say something witty like "Okay," and my heart is pounding, and I don''t know how to speak, and it''s not until you close the door behind us with a faint click that I can say, "Um, Hypothetical Person?" And you, running your hands down my sides hazily, fingers curling up through my blouse, murmur into my hair, "Mmm?" "There''s something I have to tell you," I say. I lift up my shirt and you see it. It is egg shaped, the Hole: an imperfect oblong just to the lower right of my navel, about the size of a peach or a fist. It is perfectly smooth, sealed: a toroid tunnel of white skin. Peering through it, you can see the room behind me. You can read the titles on the bookshelf. "Whoa," you say. "Yeah," I say. "Holy shit," you say. "Yep," I say. "Does it hurt?" you say. "No," I say. "What happened?" you say. "Nothing," I say. "I don''t know. I was born with it." And this is the moment I lose you. Option B: I tell you up front. "I''m that semi-cute, flat-chested girl who makes fun of your groceries at the local food co-op. I bike and paint and make up nicknames for people I''ll probably never work up the nerve to talk to; I''m a nightmare only child of a nightmare single mom; also, I have a giant, hermetically sealed hole in my torso that you could stick a fist through. Seventeen, nonsmoker, INTJ." I don''t get many takers. 2 My best friend Caroline sprawls over the edge of my bed, upside down, pulling plastic-wrapped pastries one by one from a white paper bag. It''s barely 9 a.m., but her delicate skin is flushed from biking home in the punishing North Carolina August heat, her hair a matted blond mess of sweat and flyaways. She''s stopped back at our apartment between her morning shift at Java Jane and our class''s pre-senior year kickoff beach party. I say "our" because it''s our senior year , not our party . Very few things are my party. Social-gatherings-of-everyone-I''ve-known-since-prepubescence-and-am-a-mere-180-days-away-from-escaping-forever are indubitably not my party. "It''s not too late for you to come, you know," Caro says. "We could sneak you onto the bus. Emmeline''s dad does construction--we''ll build a wooden horse, Odysseus-style. Or tie you to the bottom of a sheep." "Or just tie me to Emmeline." Caro eyes me. "Because she''s a sheep." Caro sticks her tongue out at me, upside down. Her mother tried for years to push her into gymnastics, trapeze, space camp, but Caro wasn''t interested. "I don''t want to make being upside down a job ," she said at age nine, dangling from the sofa with her hands on her chubby hips. "I just like the way it makes my face feel." I love 387 million things about Caro, including this, but it is still not compelling enough for me to spend all day on a school-sponsored beach trip, hunched in a huge T-shirt while people I had pre-algebra with cavort half-naked in the water. Caro sighs and stops unpacking pastries. "I wish you were coming," she says. "It''s only eight hours, and I want you to hang out with me. Me, your best friend, Caroline, who you love the most." "I do love you the most, but that is still eight more hours than it''s physically possible to have fun at a beach." I flop on the bed beside her, letting my head dangle toward the unvacuumed carpet. "This is a principle upon which my universe operates, Caro. Therefore, in the unlikely chance I did have fun, I would explode out of sheer cognitive dissonance." She opens her mouth, and I say, "Besides, Todd''s coming. I don''t want to be a third wheel." "You''re never a third wheel," Caro protests. "Todd loves you." I love 387 million and one things about Caro, including this: she genuinely believes nice and absurd things. We survey my upside-down bedroom in silence: the hamburger-shaped beanbag chair, the sketches taped up amid the art prints I scrounged from Goodwill, the precarious tower of cereal bowls in the corner. Deep in my body, my quiet spine uncurls. "What if," Caro says, "you came and spontaneously combusted from fun but timed it with the music so that it was the most epic beat drop of all time?" "Tempting," I muse. "But I''d probably still somehow end up with sand in my butt crack, so pass." Caro begins sorting the day-old pastries onto our stomachs by feel: three muffins, a broken cookie, a pile of unloved scones. "Morgs, you won''t third-wheel forever," she says. "There''s someone out there who''s a perfect match for you." "How hard did you hit your head just now? You know, when you fell off topic?" She ignores me. "I''m just saying. A little optimism never killed anybody." I don''t respond. One of the awkward things about being permasingle is how it makes other people feel bad for you. I mean, sure. Sometimes when I go the long way around to avoid the makeout stairwell at school, or when I see happy couples on billboards advertising Mentos or whatever, I get this little aching twinge, sneeze-quick. The word oh . Just that. As in, Oh , wouldn''t it be nice. But it usually fades pretty fast. The thing is, I like me. I''ve been me my whole life, and I''m going to keep on doing it. So why not? Caro''s phone chimes and she spills herself upward, hair and crumbs curling onto my duvet. "Okay, Miss Too-Cool-for-Back-to-School," she says brightly. "How about this: YYS is playing an anti-back-to-school party tonight off Gorman Street. Morgs, this is perfect! Come to this. You have to come to this. I promise, it won''t be any fun at all." I groan. Yum Yum Situation is a local college band. Specifically, Caro''s extremely boring boyfriend Todd''s local college band. They''re NC State students who specialize in power pop songs with atonal bass lines and tortured, insightful lyrics like, "It''s not the size of the boat, it''s the motion of the--oh-oh!" Every other week they play some hipster house party, and every other week I end up in a corner with somebody''s drunk girlfriend telling me how much she loves her drunk boyfriend, and counting the minutes until I can go home. "You know what my kind of party is?" I ask, hopefully. "The staying-at-home kind of party." Caro snorts and bumps me with her hip. A muffin rolls off of her stomach and slides into the well where my black T-shirt stretches taut over the Hole. "Dear Morgs, kindly come to this party because you''re getting that glassy, I-haven''t-interacted-with-humans-in-three-days look in your eye. Love, Caroline." "Dear Caroline," I say, "I''ve interacted with, like, four humans already today." "PS: not counting me." "Three humans." "Not counting your mother calling to yell at you about getting your shit together." "In my defense," I say, "she counts as at least sixteen people." Caro checks her watch. "I''ve got to go. I promised Angela I''d sit with her on the bus." She points to my forehead. "Party. Think about it." "Thinking," I say. "Bye." I lie on the bed for a long time after the door clicks shut, ears ringing in the sudden hush. Our empty apartment smells

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