• Author: Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley
• Publisher: Imprint/MacMillan
• Publication date: September 22nd, 2020
• Genre: Fantasy/Horror/Paranormal Fantasy
• Age group: Young Adult
• Content/Trigger warnings: Please see individual story reviews for possible content/trigger warnings.

Claudia becoming a vampire in Interview With a Vampire

“This other vampire, Seti, agreed that teenage girls definitely make the best vampires, but not for the reasons Esmael thinks. She said it’s because teenage girls are both highly pissed and highly adaptable, and that’s what it takes to survive the centuries.”

A vampire holding a teacup in front of a mirror showing no reflection

“There’s one brief moment as the sun rises in the east, and it’s blocked by the branches of the willow tree outside one of the windows that’s not boarded up. It’s just the essence of light, and if I turn my face so that it is toward the window, it’s there. In the computer screen. The color of my face. A brief reflection of it.”

Akasha, Queen of the Damned, saying “Behold our kingdom” to Lestat

“The firebird perched on the porch railing, cooing and welcoming the Turners to their new home. Bea’s heart lifted, the hum of mischief lingering right beneath the brown of her skin, and her incisors elongated, ready to bite, ready for mischief.”

Vampire showing their fangs

“We stand there in silence until I say, “I’m alone now.”

“You don’t have to be.”

It’s what I wanted him to say but I didn’t dare hope. I want to shout at him to take me away, get me out of this town, away from the diner and bullies and my empty house. But instead I ask, “What do I have to do?”

“Share a meal”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer twirling a stake

“Is that how the big scary slayer ended up in a tiny little skirt as captain of the cheerleading team? She just wanted to be a normal girl?”

“How’d you know I was captain?”

“I can smell dominance,” she says.”

A grave with mist drifting behind it.

“Other rumors of live burial have cropped up in the intervening time, some of them so wild they were clearly fiction. A body dissolving into smoke, a wolf wrapped in a burial shroud fleeing an open tomb. Dozens of coffins reported empty when they’re been dug up to check – but Will knows the reason for that.”

A v. angry vampire woman

“I’m still not used to this new strength. Vampirism is almost the exact mirror of the disease I had in life, strengthening instead of weakening my muscles. I tried to lift my head when I woke after turning and nearly snapped my neck from utter lack of resistance. I still can’t walk, of course. No amount of increased strength will ever stretch out tendons strung taut as tightrope from years of disuse, and thank God for that.

I don’t think I could’ve handled losing that much of myself.”

A hand reaching out of a coffin with the text “Trying to reach for my phone when I wake up”.

“We normally like to be organized about this sort of thing, but in our experience, there are immediate burnng questions every baby vamp has, so let’s get a few out of the way to put your mind at ease:

Am I Dracula now? No, duh, that dude was pasty as hell. Your melanin doesn’t magically disappear because vampirism…

Vampire turning into bats

“The familiar queasy thirst clenched her stomach, pulsed at the root of her tongue. If she didn’t keep moving, the thirst would permeate the air like a perfume, call to the people around her. They would come to her whether she wanted them to or not, offer themselves, even if their eyes rolled in confusion and terror as they did.

So she did keep moving, the proverbial shark in the water, swimming so as not to die. As if she could.”

Vamp fight!

“For an indulgent moment, I convinced myself that meeting Theo in real life would be quite beautiful. Despite the vast and considerable difference in our ages, to say nothing of our circumstances, I thought meeting her would be like seeing the sun. And I very much wanted to see the sun once more.”

Marceline from Adventure Time blushing

“There is the subtle ache in her mouth, the shallow longing of her teeth sliding out. And in that moment, between the fangs and the bite, she thinks of how she’d rather go to a movie, rather enjoy the scent of Calliope’s hair, the murmur of her laugh, rather stay in this closet, and keep kissing her.

Just two human girls tangled up.

But she is so hungry, and her mouth hurts so much, and she is not human, and she wants to be more.”

Tessa Gratton is the author of adult SFF The Queens of Innis Lear and Lady Hotspur from Tor Books, as well as the YA series The Blood Journals and The United States of Asgard. Her most recent YA is the original fairy tale Strange Grace from McElderry Books and the upcoming Night Shine. Tessa’s novels and short stories have been translated into twenty-two languages, nominated twice for the Tiptree Award, and several have been Junior Library Guild Selections. Though she has lived all over the world, she currently resides at the edge of the Kansas prairie with her wife.

Mark Oshiro is the author of Anger is a Gift (Tor Teen), winner of the 2019 Schneider Family Book Award and nominated for a 2019 Lammy Award (in the LGBTQ Children’s/Young Adult category). Upcoming novels include Each of Us a Desert (Tor Teen), a YA Fantasy novel out September 15, 2020, and The Insiders (Harper Collins), a MG Contemporary with magical elements out Fall 2021. When they are not writing, crying on camera about fictional characters for their online Mark Does Stuff universe, or traveling, Mark is busy trying to fulfill their lifelong goal: to pet every dog in the world.

Dhonielle Clayton was born in the suburbs of Washington, DC and spent her childhood Saturdays at the comic book store with her father and most evenings hiding beneath her grandmother’s dining room table with a stack of books. She earned a BA in English at Wake Forest University. She was an English teacher for three years and worked with educational curriculum. Being surrounded by children, Dhonielle re-discovered her love of children’s literature and earned a masters in children’s and young adult literature from Hollins University. Currently, she is working on both middle grade and young adult novel projects. She moved to NYC where she earned her MFA at the New School’s MFA Program. She is co-founder of CAKE Literary, a literary development studio committed to bringing diversity to high concept content.

Rebecca Roanhorse is a NYTimes bestselling and Nebula, Hugo and Locus Award-winning speculative fiction writer and the recipient of the 2018 Astounding (Campbell) Award for Best New Writer.

Her novel Trail of Lightning (Book 1 in the Sixth World Series) won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and is a Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy finalist. It was also selected as an Amazon, B&N, Library Journal, and NPR Best Books of 2018, among others. Book 2 in the Sixth World Series, Storm of Locusts, has received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist, is a Locus Award Finalist, and has been named an Amazon, Powell’s, and Audible Best of 2019. Her novel, Resistance Reborn, is part of Star Wars: Journey to The Rise of Skywalker and a USA Today and NYTimes bestseller. Her middle grade novel Race to the Sun for the Rick Riordan Present’s imprint was a New York Times Bestseller and received a starred review from Kirkus. Her next novel is an epic Fantasy set in a secondary world inspired by the Pre-Columbian Americas called Black Sun, out Oct 13, 2020.

She lives in Northern New Mexico with her husband, daughter, and pups. She drinks a lot of black coffee.

Julie Murphy lives in North Texas with her husband who loves her, her dog who adores her, and her cats who tolerate her. After several wonderful years in the library world, Julie now writes full-time.

When she’s not writing or reliving her reference desk glory days, she can be found watching made-for-TV movies, hunting for the perfect slice of cheese pizza, and planning her next great travel adventure.

She is also the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the young adult novels Dumplin’ (now a film on Netflix), Puddin’, Ramona Blue, and Side Effects May Vary. Dear Sweet Pea is her debut middle grade novel.

Heidi Heilig grew up in Hawaii where she rode horses and raised peacocks, and then she moved to New York City and grew up even more, as one tends to do. Her favorite thing, outside of writing, is travel, and she has haggled for rugs in Morocco, hiked the trails of the Ko’olau Valley, and huddled in a tent in Africa while lions roared in the dark. She holds an MFA from New York University in Musical Theatre Writing, of all things, and she’s written books and lyrics for shows including The Time Travelers Convention, Under Construction, and The Hole. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, son and their pet snake, whose wings will likely grow in any day now. In her debut, The Girl from Everywhere, Heidi Heilig blends fantasy, history, and a modern sensibility with witty, fast-paced dialogue, breathless adventure, and enchanting romance.

Kayla Whaley lives outside Atlanta, Georgia where she buys too many books and drinks too many lattes. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Tampa and is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. She was named one of Bustle‘s inaugural “Rule Breakers” in 2018.

Whether writing fiction, nonfiction, or the extremely occasional poem, she is fascinated by disability, sexuality, and the body. Among other venues, her work has appeared at Catapult, Bustle, Michigan Quarterly Review, Uncanny Magazine, Book Riot, and in the anthologies Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World (Algonquin) and Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux).

She has also appeared on the first season of Reese Witherspoon’s podcast How It Is and Slate’s popular Dear Prudence podcast.

Whaley spent four years as senior editor at Disability in Kidlit, an award-winning site dedicated to examining portrayals of disability in middle grade and young adult fiction, and she is currently on the Advisory Board for Research on Diversity in Youth Literature, a peer-reviewed journal published by St. Catherine University. She also holds a Master’s in Public Administration, which is languishing somewhere in her closet, so the less said about that, the better.

Samira Ahmed is the New York Times bestselling author of Love, Hate, & Other Filters and the forthcoming, Internment (March 2019) and Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Know (April 2020).

These days, Samira lives in Chicago, Illinois. When she’s not writing or reading, she can be found on her lifelong quest for the perfect pastry.

Her writing is represented by Jo Volpe at New Leaf Literary.

A two-time National Book Award Finalist, Laura Ruby writes fiction for adults, teens and children. She is the author of the Printz Medal Winning novel Bone Gap, as well as Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All. Other works include the Edgar®-nominated children’s mystery Lily’s Ghosts, the ALA Quick Pick for teens Good Girls (2006), a collection of interconnected short stories about blended families for adults, I’m not Julia Roberts (2007), and the York trilogy. She is on the faculty of Hamline University’s Masters in Writing for Children Program. She makes her home in the Chicago area.

Zoraida Córdova is the author of many fantasy novels, including the award-winning Brooklyn Brujas series, Incendiary, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: A Crash of Fate, and The Way to Rio Luna. Her short fiction has appeared in the New York Times bestselling anthology Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, Star Wars: Clone Wars Stories of Light and Dark, and Come On In. She is the co-editor of Vampires Never Get Old. She is the co-host of the writing podcast, Deadline City, with Dhonielle Clayton. Zoraida was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador and raised in Queens, New York. When she’s not working on her next novel, she’s finding a new adventure.

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Natalie C. Parker grew up in a Navy family finding home in coastal cities from Virginia to Japan. Now, she lives surprisingly far from any ocean on the Kansas prairie with her wife where she writes and edits books for teens including the acclaimed Seafire trilogy.

Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Website ~ Goodreads

Victoria “V.E.” Schwab is the #1 NYT, USA, and Indie bestselling author of more than a dozen books, including Vicious, the Shades of Magic series, and This Savage Song. Her work has received critical acclaim, been featured by EW and The New York Times, been translated into more than a dozen languages, and been optioned for TV and Film. The Independent calls her the “natural successor to Diana Wynne Jones” and touts her “enviable, almost Gaimanesque ability to switch between styles, genres, and tones.”