Ella Minnow Pea is an epistolary novel set in the fictional island of Nollop. Nollop is the inventor of the original pangram, “The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog.” Now deceased, the islanders have erected a monument to honor their hero, but one day a tile with the letter “z” falls from the statue. The leaders interpret the falling tile as a message from beyond the grave and the letter is banned from use. On an isalnd where the residents pride themselves on their love of language, this is seen as a tragedy. They are still reeling from the shock, when another tile falls and then another…

About Mark Dunn

Mark Dunn is the author of Ella Minnow Pea, Welcome to Higby, and Ibid published by MacAdam/Cage, and co-author with his wife, Mary, of United States Counties, a one-volume compendium of information on U.S. counties, published by McFarland & Company, Inc. He has also written twenty-five full-length plays, nine published in acting edition by Samuel French, Inc., Dramatists Play Service, and Dramatic Publishing Company. His work has been produced throughout the United States and Canada and in Hong Kong, Great Britain, and the Netherlands.

Dunn has received several awards for his work. His novel Ella Minnow Pea won the Borders Original Voices Book of the Year for fiction, was short-listed for Booksense Book of the Year, and was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick.

Mark and Mary Dunn are among the founding board members of PULA: People United for Libraries in Africa, an organization devoted to building libraries throughout Africa.

Originally from Memphis, he now makes his home in New Mexico.