Petra Mayer
Petra Mayer (she/her) is an editor (and the resident nerd) at NPR Books, focusing on fiction, and particularly genre fiction. She brings to the job passion, speed-reading skills, and a truly impressive collection of Doctor Who doodads. You can also hear her on the air and on the occasional episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour.
Previously, she was an associate producer and director for All Things Considered on the weekends. She handled all of the show's books coverage, and she was also the person to ask if you wanted to know how much snow falls outside NPR's Washington headquarters on a Saturday, how to belly dance, or what pro wrestling looks like up close and personal.
Mayer originally came to NPR as an engineering assistant in 1994, while still attending Amherst College. After three years spending summers honing her soldering skills in the maintenance shop, she made the jump to Boston's WBUR as a newswriter in 1997. Mayer returned to NPR in 2000 after a roundabout journey that included a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and a two-year stint as an audio archivist and producer at the Prague headquarters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. She still knows how to solder.
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60 years ago, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle cured your parenting problems with Leadership Pills, well-mannered pigs and Ignorance Tonic. Now, her niece Missy takes up the mantle in a new series of books.
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Snidely Whiplash may have been famous for yelling "Curses, foiled again!" But sometimes the bad guys win — from Milton's Satan to X-men foe Magneto, we're taking a look at the ones who get away.
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The latest book in J.K. Rowling's series, really a script for a play, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," went on sale at midnight. We check in with fans who lined up, wands in hand, to get a copy.
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As the launch of the upcoming film coincides with the heroine's Comic-Con fandom, Wonder Woman appears to be hooking new fans for the same reasons she was birthed in 1941: justice, peace and feminism.
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At this year's San Diego Comic-Con, one of the biggest phenomena isn't just inside the convention center, it's all around: Swarms of people staring at their phones as they play Pokémon Go.
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The beloved author died suddenly Wednesday at the age of 82. Just a teen herself when she started writing, Lois Duncan sent chills down a generation of spines with books like Down a Dark Hall.
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Peter Rabbit — older and stouter — returns this fall in a newly published Beatrix Potter story, The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots. It was probably written just before World War I and then abandoned.
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The PEN/Allen award is given annually to big-name authors who embody the organization's mission "to oppose repression in any form." Rowling is a frequent target — and vocal opponent — of censorship.
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Matt de la Peña becomes the first Hispanic author to win the Newbery award for children's literature, while the Caldecott picture-book prize went to a book about the real-life Winnie the Pooh.
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We get hundreds of books in the mail every week, and some always fall through the cracks. NPR's Petra Mayer singles out a biography of a Sikh princess turned suffragette for a second look.
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James is the first Jamaican author to win the prestigious literary award, for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings. It's based on a real 1976 assassination attempt on reggae star Bob Marley.
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The "sad puppies" — a group of disgruntled, mostly white male science fiction authors — struck out at the Hugo Awards over the weekend after trying to stuff the ballot box.