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.
-
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.
-
Gorman's debut poetry collection and an illustrated kids' book are first and second on the list — on the strength of pre-orders, since both titles won't be out until September.
-
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.
-
The 2020 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to U.S. poet Louise Glück "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal."
-
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 year we had kids and caregivers in mind when we chose the genre for our summer poll. So here are 100 favorite kids' books, picked by readers and expert judges, to while away the hours at home.
-
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of science-fiction great Ray Bradbury. We examine his legacy and the authors he influenced.
-
George Orwell's anti-tyranny fable Animal Farm turns 75 this week. We examine what Orwell was thinking when he wrote it, why it's lasted so long and what we can learn from it today.