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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In Zen Cho's new novel, a young woman begins to hear a voice in her head: It's the dead, estranged grandmother she never knew. Wronged in life, the grandmother wants revenge after death. -
Erdrich's novel — about a Chippewa tribal elder working as a night watchman while battling government efforts to the tribe's treaties and land ownership rights — was based on her own grandfather. -
The winners of this year's Whiting Awards have been announced; the $50,000 prize honors emerging writers, with the aim of enabling them to concentrate full-time on their work. -
Leigh Bardugo is winding up her Russian-inflected Grishaverse series (at least for now) with Rule of Wolves, which continues the story of the dashing King Nikolai of Ravka and his demonic interloper. -
Murakami's new story collection, First Person Singular, touches some of his favorite subjects — jazz, baseball, classical music — but also highlights some of the unexplained oddities of life. -
We're excited to bring you an exclusive prepublication excerpt of Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun, a gentle fable about a world in which androids serve as companions to children. -
The $35,000 prize honors fiction that "illuminates vital contemporary issues." This year's finalists deal with everything from Native American land ownership to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. -
Nominees for the 2021 Golden Globes were announced today via a livestream. Past winners Sarah Jessica Parker and Taraji P. Henson revealed the first few nominees in a simulcast with the Today show. -
The singer says she was offered the honor by the Trump administration but was unable to accept, first because her husband was ill and then because the pandemic made traveling to the ceremony unsafe. -
We here at NPR have a proprietary interest in the new novel from former KUOW producer Rachel Lynn Solomon: It's a sparky enemies-to-lovers romance set at a public radio station.
