The B&n Ya Podcast

Tahereh Mafi’s latest book is a departure for the author of the bestselling dystopian Shatter Me series, and magical middle grade novels including Furthermore. A Very Large Expanse of Sea, set in the months after 9/11, is a semiautobiographical novel centering on flinty, music-loving teen Shirin, a hijabi girl who puts up mile-high walls to protect herself from the attacks of the ignorant and the Islamophobic. It’s a story of bigotry and breakdancing and artistic escape, and is also one of the best depictions of the heady, overwhelming days of first love we have ever read. Mafi stopped by the podcast to talk about drawing inspiration from her own life, the role of books in her childhood, and growing up first-generation in the U.S.

Since 2011 Ransom Riggs has told stories set in the strange and dangerous world of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, taking his peculiars across Europe and across time. In the fourth chapter of the series, Map of Days, they’ve made their way from Europe to the U.S., where they encounter the very different landscape of peculiar America, complete with turf wars, haunted diners, and roadside nightmares. We talked to Riggs about shiny surfaces, uncanny things, and the new book. 

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Becky Albertalli is known for hilarious, feelsy, sweet and sour high school stories stuffed with wildly relatable insights and characters that will become your best friends. Adam Silvera is known for searching, often speculative tales of first love, painful memories, and coming of age that want to rip your heart out and use it as a book jacket. So ever since the two announced that they were collaborating on a meet-cute love story, fans have been debating whether we should prepare ourselves for happy tears or miserable tears. No spoilers here, but we did talk to Becky and Adam about their fandoms, their high school selves, and What If It’s Us, their ridiculously adorable book.

Neal Shusterman deals in dark fictional visions — but he never forgets to give readers a reason to hope. His Unwind dystology centered on a dystopia in which children can be retroactively aborted, or "unwound," and harvested for their organs. In his ongoing Scythe series, death by disease or accident have been rendered obsolete, and mortality is in the hands of an elite group of professional killers known as scythes. He won the 2015 National Book Award for Challenger Deep, in which a young man's descent into mental illness is rendered as a surreal sea journey into the depths of the Marianas Trench. Now in his latest novel, Dry, Neal has paired up with son Jarrod Shusterman to tell the story of a California drought turned deadly. The two of them joined us to talk about water zombies, what to do when a great idea comes to you when you're driving, and why great writing is best done on a boat.  And yep, there's a lightning round.

Lauren Oliver grew up in a house full of books, writes her novels even when she's at parties, and has so many ideas she started a company, Glass Town Entertainment, to help her turn more of them into things you can watch and read. She has written for kids, teens, and adults, seen her work adapted into film, and hit the bestseller list with works including Before I Fall and Replica. Her latest, Broken Things, combines cult literary fandom and true crime into the story of two girls wrongly accused of the murder of a third. We talked to her about her fandoms, her teen years, and why our culture is so scared of girls.

In show business, a "triple threat" is a performer who can sing, dance and act -- and that makes Neil Patrick Harris, who is all these things and the author of an inventive series of books for young readers, a quadruple threat.  The star of Netflix's A Series of Unfortunate Events joined Josh Perilo from B&N's Union Square, just before the launch event for The Magic Misfits: The Second Story, the latest adventure in his delightful series for young readers, what readers can find in the B&N Exclusive Edition, and how he is infusing these stories with his love for the mystery of stage magic.

Angie Thomas's Black Lives Matter-inspired debut, The Hate U Give, has topped the bestseller list since its release, gained fans around the world, and become the most visible title in a much-needed wave of fiction examining police brutality against black communities. It’s also one of the best coming of age books in recent memory, combining a heartbreaking topical story with a warm, funny, vividly specific portrait of a family and a neighborhood. In the weeks before the book hits the big screen, we talked to Thomas about the adaptation process; writing her forthcoming novel, On the Come Up; and the books and authors that helped pave the way for her and Starr Carter’s story.

Nova Ren Suma writes haunting, female-fronted tales about sinister things, exploring the complexities of family, different kinds of ghost stories, and what it means to be a woman in the world. Her latest, A Room Away From the Wolves, takes place in the stifling rooms of an all-female boarding house in New York City. Deeply unreliable teen narrator Bina flees to Catherine House after an unnamed trauma, and there she falls under the sway of long-dead founder Catherine de Barra, and of fellow boarder Monet, who may just be the key to breaking Catherine House’s spell. We talked to Nova about New York stories, girls gone astray, and her path to becoming a writer.

Ibi Zoboi’s debut, American Street, turned heads with its gorgeous mashup of vodou-infused magical realism and the coming of age immigrant’s story of Haitian teen Fabiola, navigating a strange new life in the U.S. following her mother’s detainment midway through their journey from Port au Prince to Detroit. Her sophomore novel, Pride, is a novel not of displacement but of deep roots, a remixed take on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice set in Zoboi’s adopted childhood home of Bushwick, Brooklyn, following her own move at age four from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In her hands, Elizabeth Bennet becomes Haitian-Dominican teen Zuri Benitez, whose neighborhood is her kingdom—but whose status quo is threatened by both her imminent departure for college and the arrival on her street of the ultra-rich Darcy family, including the handsome, infuriatingly snobby Darius Darcy. Zoboi talked with us about the inspirations that became her second novel, her path from slam poetry to the written word, and the importance of being c

Courtney Summers’ latest book, Sadie, is a dark new thriller fusing episodes of a true crime podcast focusing on the disappearance of small-town girl Sadie with the first-person story of Sadie herself, on a desperate mission of vengeance following the abduction and murder of her younger sister. Summers’ books explore the darkest things that can happen to girls, from sexual assault to ostracization to supernatural attack. Her heroines are flawed and fascinating, her depiction of their struggles unflinching. We talked to her about her process, her fandoms, and why she goes dark.

Kara Thomas writes page-turning thrillers with true crime DNA, about complicated girls navigating hard histories, dangerous entanglements, and dark deeds. Her latest is The Cheerleaders, centering on a small-town girl whose older sister was the final girl to die in a string of terrible incidents—including an accident, a double-murder, and an alleged suicide—that wiped out half a high school cheer squad. Thomas talked to us about her dastardly Google search history, her fascination with complicated female characters, and what inspires her twisting tales.

Marisha Pessl debuted in 2006 with Special Topics in Calamity Physics, a fascinating bestseller about a bookish girl and her charismatic whirlpool of a father. With its dark thrills and astonishing reveals, it made her an immediate author to watch. She followed it with Night Film, a horror thriller about a reclusive creator of cult "terror films" and the journalist who destroyed his career in pursuit of the filmmaker’s secrets. Now she’s releasing her YA debut, Neverworld Wake, a brainy supernatural tale about five teens who, following an accident that leaves them on the edge of death, must relive one day over and over, until they can vote on who among them will survive it. Pessl’s books are dense with creation and hyper articulate, filled with invented cultural artifacts and singular characters. We sat down with her to talk about entering the YA world, cult fandom, and the killer concept behind Neverworld Wake.

Stephanie Garber’s debut novel Caraval is a jewel box of a book, filled with unearthly delights. With its magical dresses, life-or-death riddles, and glittering carnival backdrop, it became one of 2017’s best loved fantasies. Now, Garber has returned with sequel Legendary, in which the magic is darker, the stakes higher, and the game of Caraval is played out across a far grander canvas. Garber is an author who’s funny and frank about her journey to publication and the battles she fights as a full-time author creating immersive worlds. We sat down with her to discuss worldbuilding, why she became a reader later than you’d think, and taking the wrong fictional roads so you can find the right ones.

Nicola Yoon writes love stories that will break your heart, filled with all the hope, excitement, and uncertainty of first romance. Her characters fall in love through emails, from afar, or in the space of just one day. She explores the walls between them and the moonstruck optimism that guides them in effervescent, deeply humanistic prose that wraps itself around your heart. Her #1 NYT bestselling debut, Everything, Everything, was adapted into a 2017 film, and her sophomore novel, National Book Award finalist The Sun Is Also a Star, will be following it to the big screen soon. We talked about her process, immigration stories, and what it’s like to work on a love story with the one you love.

Rainbow Rowell is a literary chameleon. From a devastating teen love story to a magical realistic marital romance to her latest project, reviving Brian K. Vaughan's Runaways comics, she moves among genres, setting, and style, never writing the same book twice.  But what books from Eleanor & Park to Carry On share is imperfect, deeply real characters who leap off the page, whether they're high school students, dissatisfied office employees, or wizards in training; dialogue that crackles with humor and life; and funny, true moments that give you the feeling that Rowell is right on the other side of the pages, your funniest, most brilliant friend telling you a story.  In this episode of the podcast, Rainbow Rowell joins us from her hometown of Omaha for a wide-ranging conversation about comics, fan fiction, growing up in the pre-Internet world and the path from reader to creator.

Renée Ahdieh and Sabaa Tahir have been shaping the landscape of YA fantasy since the release of their debut novels in 2015. Ahdieh’s The Wrath and the Dawn folded elements of the Thousand and One Nights and Beauty and the Beast into a lush, sensuous love story, about a girl who’s more than she seems telling stories to her husband, a murderous caliph, to stay alive. Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes kicked off a bloody, addictive fantasy epic set against the brutal backdrop of the Martial Empire, built on the backs of the oppressed Scholar people. Their work explores, among other things, magic dark and light, fascinating villains, oppression and colonialism, and moral rot. Recently Tahir released A Reaper at the Gates, the third book in the Ember quartet, and Ahdieh released Smoke in the Sun, her fourth book and the second in her Flame in the Mist duology, set in a magic-infused version of Feudal Japan. We spoke to them about their books, their teen years, and the fast friendship that started with a two-hour pho

Gayle Forman is an author best known for demolishing readers’ hearts. In books like If I Stay ( adapted as a film in 2014) and Just One Day Forman creates characters who feel utterly real, as they wrestle with everything life can throw at them: the explosive power of first love, the wrenching grief of a friend’s suicide, or the impact of cold reality on creative dreams. Her latest, the instant bestseller I Have Lost My Way, centers on the fateful meeting of three teens in New York City, each on the verge of a personal cataclysm. In this episode, Gayle Forman joins us to talk about the new book, her world travels, getting real for Seventeen magazine, and celebrating the connections that just feel like fate.

Cassandra Clare is the creator behind the sprawling, beloved Shadowhunters universe, which launched in 2007 with City of Bones. The dark, unforgettable series centers on a race of angel-blooded warriors tasked with defending mundane society from demonic takeover.  More than a dozen books later, Clare’s is one of modern fantasy’s richest worlds, populated with deeply human, wickedly funny characters, and boasting a mythology that fans (and other writers) can’t stop exploring.  To kick off the B&N YA Podcast, Clare sat down with host Melissa Albert to talk about what made her a writer, how her ideas develop, and why she’s still mad at C.S. Lewis.