24 Facts About Mona Simpson

Mona Simpson has written six novels and studied English at the University of California, Berkeley and Languages and Literature at Columbia University.

Mona Simpson won a Whiting Award for her first novel, Anywhere but Here.

Mona Simpson is the younger sister of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Mona Simpson was born after her parents had married and did not meet Jobs, who was placed for adoption after he was born, until she was 25 years old.

Mona Simpson's first novel, Anywhere But Here, was a critical and popular success, winning a Whiting Award.

Liesl Schillinger suggests that the novel is a "compassionate fictional exploration of this complicated global relationship, Simpson assesses the human cost that the child-care bargain exacts on the amah, on her employer and on the children of both".

Mona Simpson was a good student as a child but was "a clown" and "a smart aleck" who used to make jokes in class.

Mona Simpson enjoyed journalism and hoped for a position with the Richmond Independent Gazette but did not receive it.

In 1994, Mona Simpson returned to Los Angeles area with her then-husband, Richard Appel.

In 2001, Mona Simpson started teaching creative writing at UCLA; she has an appointment at Bard College in New York state.

Mona Simpson Jandali was born June 14,1957, in Green Bay, Wisconsin to an Arab father from Syria and a Swiss-German American mother.

Mona Simpson's mother, Joanne Carole Schieble, was born August 1,1932, and grew up Roman Catholic on a farm in Wisconsin.

Mona Simpson's father, Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, was born in Homs, Syria, on March 15,1931.

Mona Simpson is the son of a self-made millionaire who had no higher education and a mother who was a traditional housewife.

Mona Simpson traveled alone to San Francisco to work with a doctor who cared for unwed mothers and gave birth to a baby boy in 1955.

Mona Simpson would grow up to be Apple Inc co-founder, Steve Jobs.

Mona Simpson then wed Jandali and gave birth to Mona.

Mona Simpson then discovered that not only was Simpson his sister but that she had no idea an older brother had been placed up adoption.

Schieble then arranged for Jobs and Mona Simpson to meet in New York where Mona Simpson worked.

Jobs told his official biographer that after meeting Mona Simpson, he wanted to become involved in her ongoing search for their father.

When Jandali was found working in Sacramento, Jobs decided that only Mona Simpson would meet him.

Jandali and Mona Simpson spoke for several hours at which point he told her that he had left teaching to join the restaurant business.

Mona Simpson would create a fictional portrait of Jobs in the 1996 novel, A Regular Guy.

Mona Simpson married the television writer and producer Richard Appel in 1993 and had two children, Gabriel and Grace.