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WORK TITLE: Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1970?
WEBSITE: https://christaavampato.com/
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born c. 1970, New York, NY.
EDUCATION:University of Pennsylvania, B.A.; University of Virginia Darden School of Business, M.B.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, journalist, theater and film producer, visual artist, and public speaker. PatronManager, New York, NY, director of product development. Previously worked as a product developer, product manager, theater manager, strategic consultant, marketer, voice over artist, teacher, and fundraiser. Invited public speaker appearances include iSXSW, Teach for America, Avon headquarters, Games for Change, New York University, Columbia University, Hunter College, and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America.
AVOCATIONS:Yoga.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals and websites, including the Washington Post, Huffington Post, PBS.org, Boston.com, and Motley Fool. Also contributor to Royal Media Partners publications.
SIDELIGHTS
After receiving her undergraduate degree, Christa Avampato followed her passion for theater by managing Broadway shows and national theater tours. She then earned a master’s degree in business administration andworked in the corporate world. Next, she began a consulting career working primarily with nonprofits focusing on education, including the Sesame Workshop, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and the New York Public Library. Avampato eventually went to work for a technology company that builds software for performing arts and cultural organizations.
Avampato also established a career as a freelance writer, contributing to periodicals and websites, and as a public speaker. Her interest in writing can be traced to her life growing up on a former apple farm in upstate New York’s Hudson Valley, where she becamean avid reader. Avampato was also an eclectic reader, reading everything from Nancy Drew mystery novels to her father’s New York Times. She also read travel brochures to spike her imagination about far off places.”“That was how I was able to figure out there was a whole other world out there that I hadn’t seen,” Avampato told Hudson Valley One website contributor Sharyn Flanagan.
In her debut young adult (YA) novel, Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters, Avampato tells the story of 13-year-old Emerson Page and the death of her mother. Emerson’s mother, Nora, was a world-renowned anthropologist who specialized in ancient cultures and languages. Found on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Nora looked like she was just sleeping. The police quickly gave up the search for answers since there was evidence of foul play. Emerson, however, never gave up the desire to find out what happened to her mother five years earlier.
Avampato told Hudson Valley One contributor Flanagan that she wrote the kind of novel she would have wanted to read when she was a girl, “one that places women and girls at the very center of a story in which they save themselves and lift others as they rise.” Avampato also pointed out that Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters “incorporates elements of history, science, technology and mythology while it celebrates the power of books to transform lives and communities.”
Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters follows Emerson as she begins the search for answers to her mother’s death. Meanwhile, Emerson has been suffering from anxiety attacks since her mother died and has a therapy dog named Friday to help her cope. She also has bonded with a student at Columbia University named Skylar, who watches Emeerson when her father, a forensic linguist, is away on business.
A bookstore visit sets Emerson off on her quest. Meanwhile, strange things are happening, including a woman named Cassandra who appears to be part human, part metal. Eventually, Emerson’s journey leads her to the bowels of New York City, where she discovers the truth about her mother. It turns out that her mother is one of the of the descendants of the nine Muses in Greek mythology. As Nora’s daughter, Emerson is also one of the descendants. She soon discovers that her goal is to help stop all human creativity from being destroyed, a goal that one of her own kind might be helping come about.
Avampato “takes her relatable heroine on a journey toward self-determination, strength of purpose, and the discovery of her own gifts of light and imagination,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor, who went on to note the novel’s “richly layered, thought-provoking plot infused with messages about self-realization and the significance of imagination and creativity.” A Children’s Bookwatch contributor remarked: “Emerson Page and Where The Light Enters showcases author Christa Avampato’s impressive flair for originality and master of the storytelling arts.” According to Hudson Valley One contributor Flanagan, Avampato has plans to produce nine more books in a series about Emerson until the heroine is twenty years old.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Children’s Bookwatch, January, 2018, review of Emerson Page and Where The Light Enters.
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2018, review of Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters.
ONLINE
Christa Avampato website, https://christaavampato.com (July 10, 2018).
Hudson Valley One, https://hudsonvalleyone.com/ (September 25, 2017), Sharyn Flanagan, “Personally Speaking: Christa Avampato.”
about me
Headshot main
The short of it:
Writer. Health, education, and art advocate. Theater and film producer. Visual artist. Product geek. Proud alumnae of the University of Pennsylvania (BA) and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (MBA). Inspired by ancient wisdom & modern tech. Proliferator of goodness. Opener of doors. Friend to animals. Fan of creative work in all its wondrous forms. I use my business skills to create passion projects that build a better world. I’ve been called the happiest New Yorker, and I try hard to live up to that title every day.
The long of it:
My career has stretched across Capitol Hill, Broadway theatre, education, nonprofit fundraising, health and wellness, and Fortune 500 companies in retail, media, entertainment, technology, and financial services. I’ve been a product developer and product manager, theater manager, strategic consultant, marketer, voice over artist, , teacher, and fundraiser. I use my business and storytelling to support and sustain passion projects that build a better world. In every experience, I’ve used my sense of and respect for elegant design to develop meaningful products, services, programs, and events.
While building a business career, I also built a strong portfolio as a journalist, novelist, freelance writer, interviewer, presenter, and public speaker. My writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, PBS.org, Boston.com, Royal Media Partners publications, and The Motley Fool on a wide range of topics including business, technology, science, health, education, culture, and lifestyle. I have also been an invited speaker at SXSW, Teach for America, Avon headquarters, Games for Change, NYU, Columbia University, Hunter College, and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. The first book in my young adult book series, Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters, was recently acquired by a publisher and launched in November 2017.
A recovering multi-tasker, I’m equally at home in front of my Mac, on my yoga mat, walking my rescue dog, Phineas, traveling with a purpose, or practicing the high-art of people watching. I also cut up small bits of paper and put them back together as a collage artist.
My current projects:
Writing the second novel in the Emerson Page series.
Non-fiction book about imagination and business co-authored with Dr. R. Edward Freeman. Title TBD.
I work full-time as the Director of Product Development for PatronManager, a CRM platform built in Salesforce, that helps performing arts organizations and museums manage their box office, fundraising, marketing, and staff collaboration projects.
Contact info:
Email: christa (dot) avampato (at) gmail (dot) com
Christa Avampato
Christa Avampato
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Christa Avampato was born on a retired apple farm in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and pursued her passion for theater by managing Broadway shows and national theater tours.
After getting her MBA at the Darden School at the University of Virginia, she spent five years in corporate America and then started her own boutique consulting practice to work with education-based nonprofits and startups such as Sesame Workshop, PBS, and the New York Public Library.
During that time, she grew her writing career as a freelancer for publications including The Washington Post, HuffPost, and Royal Media Partners magazines. She has been an invited speaker on the power of the imagination at SXSW, Games for Change, New York University, and Columbia University. Additionally, Christa is a Director of Product Development for a technology company that builds software for performing arts and cultural organizations.
Dedicated to helping young people find their own voices, Christa has served as a volunteer middle school and high school teacher for New York City public schools through Junior Achievement and a creative writing workshop facilitator for 826DC.org.
Through it all, yoga has kept her focused, her rescue pup, Phineas, has kept her company, and her home in New York City has kept her inspired. This is the first novel in the Emerson Page Series.
Follow her on Twitter @christanyc and Instagram @christarosenyc, or visit her online at christaavampato.com.
ersonally speaking: Christa Avampato
by Sharyn Flanagan/September 25, 2017/1 comment
Christa Avampato
Growing up on a retired apple farm in Highland, Christa Avampato read everything she could get her hands on, from the Nancy Drew mystery novel series for young readers to the New York Times discarded after her father finished reading it. Her family lived on the poverty line, and there wasn’t money for travel or vacations, so reading became her escape. As a kid, she even sent away for travel brochures advertised in the back of the Times Sunday magazine, keeping them under her bed to pore over and dream of the places she would go someday.
“That was how I was able to figure out there was a whole other world out there that I hadn’t seen,” says Avampato. Now based in New York City, the Highland native has written her first book, a young adult fantasy novel planned as the first in a series. Possibilities Publishing Company will release Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters on November 1. The book is available now for pre-orders on Amazon.com.
“My desire to spread and promote healing through literature is one of the main reasons I wrote the book,” Avampato says. “The main message of my story is that the human imagination is the best tool we have to build a better world.”
Despite growing up in constrained financial circumstances, access to books and all the reading she did allowed her to feel that she could create her own world, she adds. “And I think it was a healing experience for me to know that, and not just say, ‘this is what I was born into and nothing can help.’”
In writing Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters, Avampato says she wrote the novel she wanted to read in her youth but couldn’t find, “one that places women and girls at the very center of a story in which they save themselves and lift others as they rise. The book also incorporates elements of history, science, technology and mythology while it celebrates the power of books to transform lives and communities.”
The storyline follows 13-year-old Emerson Page as the young girl searches for answers to the mystery of her mother’s unusual death five years earlier. Emerson’s mother, Nora, a renowned anthropologist known for her research on ancient cultures, appeared to have simply fallen asleep on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and failed to awaken. According to the synopsis on the back cover, “The police gave up their search for answers. But Emerson didn’t. Her journey to discover the answers about her mother’s mysterious death takes her deep below the streets of New York City on a dangerous adventure into a magical world of books. There she learns the stunning truth about her mother and her own destiny to continue her mother’s legacy.”
Much of the book is set in Manhattan on the Upper West Side where its writer lives. Avampato envisions Emerson’s story continuing through nine more books, until her heroine turns 20. “At the end of the first book, she is left with a mission; how to uphold the legacy that her mother left for her. So that’s going to take some books for her to get there! I also really love the character; there are so many different threads to pull through from that first book that can be developed. It took a lot of time and effort to create Emerson’s world, and now that it’s there, I feel like, why wouldn’t she go on to have other adventures and do other things?”
Avampato’s own adventures after graduating from Highland High School included earning a degree from the University of Pennsylvania and pursuing a passion for theater by managing Broadway shows and national theater tours. After getting an MBA at the Darden School at the University of Virginia, she spent five years in corporate America and then started her own consulting practice, working with education-based nonprofits that included Sesame Workshop, PBS and the New York Public Library.
She is currently employed by Patron Technology, which provides marketing software for performing arts organizations, and has written as a freelancer for Washington Post, HuffPost and Royal Media Partners magazines.
Avampato’s interest in helping young people find their own voices has led her to serve as a volunteer middle and high school teacher for New York City public schools. She’s been an invited speaker on the power of the imagination at several organizations and at New York and Columbia universities, and while living in Washington, DC she led creative writing workshops for the nonprofit 826DC.org group that works with kids up to age 18 on their writing skills. Having moved back to New York, Avampato is now a teaching artist with 826NY.org, and says she’d be happy to come up to the Hudson Valley to offer the same kind of mentoring for young people here.
“I can read parts of the book and help kids through their own writing. I always loved it when we had any kind of guest speaker when I was in school, because it was a glimpse of another world out there. Kids now are more connected and aware of that, but I think it’s always exciting to see someone who started out where you are and went on to do other things.”
Avampato credits her upbringing in Highland and its school district with having had “an enormous impact” on her career as a writer. “I think my earliest inkling that writing was what I wanted to do with my life at some point, in some way, happened as a result of my education in Highland. I had two teachers specifically, now retired, who were very instrumental in encouraging my writing. Elyse Scott, my English teacher in 7th and 8th grade, and Patricia Steffens, my Spanish teacher in middle school and later very involved with the theater group at the high school when I was there. I also had an amazing guidance counselor, Jim Wherry.”
Guidance counselors don’t always get the credit they deserve, says Avampato. “But I would not have gone to Penn as an undergrad without Mr. Wherry. He was a tremendous influence in my life; I wouldn’t have the life I have if he hadn’t been my guidance counselor, and believed so deeply in me.”
College was by no means assumed in her situation. “The tuition was more money than my mother made in a year,” she adds. “We were on the free lunch program all through my schooling, and very fortunate to have programs like that because sometimes it was my only full meal in a day. But having those supports and having my teachers and Mr. Wherry made me realize that I could move beyond how I was raised. That it didn’t have to define me; it could influence me and it could drive me, and make me want to work harder and achieve more, but just because I didn’t have enough, didn’t mean that I wasn’t enough.”
That was a powerful message, she says. “I think the only reason I pursued my creative work was because my ideas didn’t get squashed. Nobody told me I couldn’t be a writer or I couldn’t do anything I wanted to do. If anything, they pushed me further and wouldn’t let me discount myself in any way. So that changed the equation; it changed everything for me.”
Avampato says she used to shy away from talking about things like needing the free lunch program as a kid. “There is definitely an embarrassment that comes along with needing that kind of help. There’s no way around that. But then I realized, if I don’t talk about it, who is going to? I think that adults who benefit from these programs and do go on to do well actually have to talk about it. And those kids who are getting this help now shouldn’t think that it defines them. And they shouldn’t feel like they’re never going to get beyond this. It’s a lot of work and it takes a lot of time, but I’m a living testament that it can be done.”
Avampato says she hopes that the young readers of Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters will feel less alone for having picked up the book. “I think that no matter what kind of childhood you have, there are times that you are lonely. Or you think that no one understands you, that no one has ever gone through what you have gone through. But the amazing thing about stories, is that there are these universal themes, and we can all relate to certain things. Books connect people across states, and across time, even. Long after I’m gone, this book will live on. And as a writer, you’re able to help people that you’ll never even know.”
Contact Christa Avampato at christa.avampato@gmail.com.
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Print Marked Items
Avampato, Christa: EMERSON PAGE
AND WHERE THE LIGHT ENTERS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Avampato, Christa EMERSON PAGE AND WHERE THE LIGHT ENTERS Thumbkin Prints (Indie
Fiction) $11.99 11, 1 ISBN: 978-1-947486-00-3
In this debut YA novel, the extraordinary truth behind the death of her mother kindles a teenager's
determination to claim her place in a world-threatening conflict between light and dark.
Odd things are happening around 13-year-old New Yorker Emerson Page, a girl who has suffered from
severe anxiety since the death of her mother five years ago. The official cause of death is still unknown. The
teen's therapy dog, Friday, is her anchor; so is Columbia student Skylar, who stays with her when Emerson's
forensic linguist father is away. A trip to her favorite bookstore is the catalyst for puzzling events that begin
with the gift of an old tome; the disturbing appearance of a part-metal, part-flesh woman named Cassandra;
a howling storm; and a riot on the street under a sky "painted the color of chaos." Indeed, mysteries and
portentous happenings so abound that readers could well feel at sea if not for Avampato's taut unveiling of a
fantastical hidden world, where descendants of the nine Muses in Greek mythology must find a way to
prevent the destruction of all human creative thoughts and endeavors by one of their own. Can Emerson be
the key? The author takes her relatable heroine on a journey toward self-determination, strength of purpose,
and the discovery of her own gifts of light and imagination. During Emerson's odyssey, paintings come to
life; books in a vast "Library of Imagination" represent nothing less than the lives of every creative mind on
Earth, past and present; and the heroine faces the nightmare that is Cassandra's dark world of "In-Between."
The multilayered plot and vivid prose amply illustrate the tale's key themes: the importance of human
imagination, the arts, and invention as well as the value in finding and sharing one's light. But Avampato
may want to reconsider her statement, in her otherwise inspirational note about why she wrote her work,
that there are "almost no" YA books "in which a female protagonist takes control of her own life and
destiny." Among the wealth of such novels: Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown, Philip Pullman's
The Golden Compass, Tamora Pierce's Beka Cooper series, Catherine Linka's A Girl Called Fearless, and
Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.
A suspenseful fantasy that delivers a richly layered, thought-provoking plot infused with messages about
self-realization and the significance of imagination and creativity.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Avampato, Christa: EMERSON PAGE AND WHERE THE LIGHT ENTERS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr.
2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532700300/ITOF?
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u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=11ec44b6. Accessed 24 June 2018.
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Emerson Page and Where The Light
Enters
Children's Bookwatch.
(Jan. 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/cbw/index.htm
Full Text:
Emerson Page and Where The Light Enters
Christa Avampato
Thumbkin Press
c/o Possibilities Publishing Company
http://www.possibilitiespublishingcompany.com
9781947486003, $11.99, PB, 260pp, www.amazon.com
Thirteen-year-old Emerson Page wants to know what happened to her mother, Nora, a world-renowned
anthropologist well-known for her research on ancient cultures and languages. Five years ago, Nora was
found on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "We've never seen anything like it," said the NYPD.
"It's as if she just fell asleep on the steps of the museum and never woke up." Eventually, the police gave up
their search for answers. But Emerson didn't. Her journey to discover the answers about her mother's
mysterious death takes her deep below the streets of New York City on a dangerous adventure into a
magical world of books. There, she learns the stunning truth about her mother and her own destiny to
continue her mother's legacy. Time is running out. An alarming threat looms large and too close to home.
With the very existence of human imagination at stake, can Emerson find the strength to fulfill her mother's
final wish before it's too late? A deftly written and unfailingly entertaining novel for teen readers, "Emerson
Page and Where The Light Enters" showcases author Christa Avampato's impressive flair for originality and
master of the storytelling arts. While unreservedly recommended for both school and community library YA
Fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Emerson Page and Where The Light
Enters" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $4.99).
Please Note: Illustration(s) are not available due to copyright restrictions.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Emerson Page and Where The Light Enters." Children's Bookwatch, Jan. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A526996627/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=8915a32c.
Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A526996627