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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The prestigious Hugo Awards, which honor science fiction and fantasy writing, will be held Saturday. Lately, they have been given to more and more women and writers of color as the world of sci-fi opens up — and that's prompted a backlash from a group of mostly white male writers who call themselves the "Sad Puppies."
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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.
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Tender, smoky, fall-off-the-bone ribs can take three or four hours to make the traditional way. But Baltimore chef Shirlé Koslowski uses a pressure cooker to get all that flavor in only an hour.
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Nearly 150 writers have now signed an open letter that condemns the attacks on the French satirical magazine, but questions whether it deserves a free speech prize for its willingness to offend.
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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.
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Copies of Shakespeare's first folio are some of the rarest books in the world — only about 230 copies survive. Surprisingly, another copy has been rediscovered in a public library in northern France.
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NPR's Petra Mayer profiles YA author Ann Brashares, whose new book The Here and Nowfollows a young girl and her community who've escaped a terrible future via time travel and landed in our present.
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The classic British sci-fi series Doctor Who turns 50 today — though the time-traveling Doctor himself is probably somewhere on the wrong side of 1000. NPR's Petra Mayer has an appreciation of the show and the enduring appeal of its ancient, alien hero.
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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.
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Photographer Edward Curtis decided to chronicle the experience of the vanishing Native American tribes at the end of the 19th century. It was an unbelievably ambitious project that would define Curtis, his work and his legacy.