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 Whodoodads. 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.
-
January 1st is Public Domain Day. That's the day creative works over a certain age enter the public domain.
-
People looking for holiday gift ideas have a resource: the NPR Book Concierge. The interactive book finder has hundreds of titles selected by NPR critics and staff.
-
This year's National Book Awards — announced in a first-ever virtual streaming ceremony — went mostly to writers of color, as the foundation that gives the prizes vowed to be more inclusive.
-
The 2020 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to U.S. poet Louise Glück "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." -
Comedian, author and filmmaker Terry Jones has died at the age of 77 after suffering from dementia. As part of Monty Python, he was known for his drag characters and for co-writing the "Spam" sketch.
-
The prolific author, who died Thursday at 66, was known for his novels about the fantasy planet Discworld, populated by humans, witches, trolls and dwarves — and a very human, sympathetic Death.
-
After is an epic, erotic fan fiction loosely based on the British boy band One Direction. It's being republished by Simon & Schuster, which is hoping the story's online fans will buy it in book form.
-
In laid-back Key West, most people get around by bike. Which meant that NPR's Petra Mayer had to — finally — learn to ride one for her vacation this year. And with the help of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, she did it.
-
Lizzie Skurnick has written for and about teens, and now she's venturing into publishing, with a new imprint dedicated to beloved and forgotten young adult novels. Skurnick says classic YA isn't just about fluffy romance; these are books about real life, which deserve to be preserved and celebrated.
-
Debbie Macomber's books don't get a lot of critical attention, but they've sold in the hundreds of millions. Her fans feel like they know and love the woman behind the words, so her publisher threw a party for them.
