Petra Mayer
Petra Mayer died on November 13, 2021. She has been remembered by friends and colleagues, including all of us at NPR. The Petra Mayer Memorial Fund for Internships has been created in her honor.
Petra Mayer (she/her) was an editor (and the resident nerd) at NPR Books, focusing on fiction, and particularly genre fiction. She brought to the job passion, speed-reading skills, and a truly impressive collection of Doctor Who doodads. You could also hear her on the air and on the occasional episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour.
Prior to her role at NPR Books, 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.
-
Texas native Mike Nesmith rose to fame as one of the Pre-Fab Four — but he had a long and influential career after the Monkees. He helped invent the format that became MTV, and produced the cult film Repo Man. His San Antonio ties included attending San Antonio College, completing basic training at Lackland AFB, and marrying his first wife, Phyllis, in 1964 at Fort Sam Houston's chapel. -
Shortages of paper and cardboard — plus issues with warehouse and shipping capacity — are causing havoc in the publishing industry right before the holiday shopping season kicks into gear.
-
British talk show host Graham Norton is also an accomplished novelist — his latest, Home Stretch, follows the people of a small Irish town after a fatal car accident upends everyone's lives. -
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. -
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.
-
This year's MacArthur Fellows — recipients of what's commonly called the Genius Grant — include artists, scientists, dancers and more. They'll each receive a no-strings-attached $625,000 award. -
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of science-fiction great Ray Bradbury. We examine his legacy and the authors he influenced.
