User:CarolPlumUcci

Carol Plum-Ucci received one of the nation’s top literary honors for her first novel, THE BODY OF CHRISTOPHER CREED, a suspense story set in the historic woods of Southern New Jersey. The novel received one of four Michael J. Printz Honor Book Awards, sponsored by the American Library Association, recognizing the best literature published for young adults. The novel also was a finalist in the Edgar Allan Poe Awards and was named to the Reader’s International Children’s Choice Awards List. Hyperion released a paperback edition.

      WHAT HAPPENED TO LANI GARVER, Plum-Ucci’s second novel, is story of prejudice, friendship, popularity, tolerance, and individuality.  The story raises a most important question:  Might angels exist on earth?  The novel has been selected as a featured book both in Seventeen Magazine and YM Magazine.  It is named to the 2003 Best Books for Young Adults List, sponsored by the American Library Association, and is a 2004 Teen Top Ten nominee.  It was nominated for the Michael L. Printz Awards for excellence in Young Adult Literature.

      Plum-Ucci’s third novel of THE SHE, was was nominated for BBYA (Best Books for Young Adults, The American Library Association) and received a starred review in Booklist. Her fourth novel, THE NIGHT MY SISTER WENT MISSING, was named a finalist in the Edgar Allan Poe Awards.  Her fifth novel, STREAMS OF BABEL, about terrorists poisoning the water supply in New Jersey, was released in the spring of 2008.  It was immediately named a Premiere Selection the Junior Library Guild and is featured in Kirkus Review’s Upcoming Mysteries and Suspense special edition.

      Plum-Ucci speaks to audiences across America.  She resides in Southern New Jersey with her husband Rick and daughter Abbey.   She has a grown daughter and three grown stepchildren.

      Born Carol Plum, August 16, 1957, she spent her childhood growing up on the barrier island of Brigantine, New Jersey, where her father was a funeral director.  She lived overtop of the funeral home.
 
       “My bedroom was such that if the floor were made of glass, I would have been gazing down into the face of a casket dweller,” she frequently tells audiences.  “When people ask me how I became a writer, I say it was in the middle of nights while growing up there.”   Plum-Ucci loves to tell her childhood funeral home antics, which have captivated teenage audiences across America.

       She attended the Brigantine Public Schools, Atlantic City Friends School, and Holy Spirit High School, graduating in 1975.  She earned her bachelor’s degree in Communication from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana in 1979.   She attended Rutgers University and received her Master of Arts degree 2004. 
 
       Plum-Ucci worked as Staff Writer and Director of Publications for the Miss America Organization in Atlantic City from 1984 through 1999.  She is the third generation of women in her family to contribute to Atlantic City’s well-known fanfare.  Her mother, Ellen Plum, was the first woman President, and her paternal grandmother, Ads Plum, was a member of the Hostess Committee.
 
      She retired from corporate employ in June of 1999, “about two days after my advance arrived for The Body of Christopher Creed,” she says.  “I loved being part of something historical like Miss America, and I have many great memories of working there.  But I’d spent many years trying to become a published novelist, and I wanted to started enjoying that lifestyle as quickly as possible.
 
      Her husband of seventeen years, Rick, owns the Ucci Piano Service. Together, they love cooking, entertaining, watching Academy Award winning movies, and raising their daughter, Abbey.