Mona Awad is a Canadian novelist and short-story writer. Her debut book, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, a novel (structured using linked short stories) about a woman's lifelong struggle with body image issues, won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2016. She was inspired to write the book because of her own experiences growing up and struggling with her own body image. In the Los Angeles Times, Awad has been quoted as saying, she "made [music] playlists for every chapter" in 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl because it helped her "immerse" herself in the story, helping her to better "access it."