On March 31, 2015 Y.A. authors Claudia Gray and Moriah McStay will be at Lemuria Bookstore. Signing at 5 p.m., Reading at 5:30 p.m.

Y.A. is a publishing term that stands for Young Adult, and is a genre marketed to high school students. This genre of “children’s literature” borders between adolescence and adulthood, and often features themes that explore that transition in a young person’s life. Young Adult authors have written books that are fun to read, and some of the best Y.A. books are sharp and well-written, so that there is a far-reaching crowd beyond the age of 17 that enjoys reading Y.A. (looking at you, John Green).

I am delighted to bring the sharpest and wittiest pair of Y.A. authors from the South to Jackson.

Attend an exciting panel at Lemuria Books this Tuesday, featuring Claudia Gray and Moriah McStay. I interviewed Claudia back in November when A Thousand Pieces of You hit the shelves, but now she will be visiting Jackson and Lemuria, along with Memphis author Moriah McStay with her debut Y.A. novel, Everything That Makes You. I can’t sing their praises enough, and will divide and conquer each book.

A Thousand Pieces of You

by Claudia Gray

“Orphan Black” meets “Cloud Atlas” in the first book of this epic dimension-bending trilogy about a girl who must chase her father’s killer through multiple dimensions. A little Dr. Who, a little “Wrinkle in Time” that takes place not only in different dimensions, but in different cities around the world. Gray began her writing career with the Evernight series: four YA novels set in an eerie gothic boarding school. The Evernight books received critical acclaim from national media, earned Gray the title of New York Times bestseller, and jumpstarted her career. She is also the author of the popular and highly praised Spellcaster series, the Firebird Trilogy, and the upcoming Star Wars novel, “Lost Stars.”

Though she has worked as a lawyer, journalist, disc jockey, and extremely poor waitress, she currently writes full time. She resides in New Orleans.

Fun facts: Claudia’s favorite childhood book was “A Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and if she could be any fictional character, she would be Hermione.

Everything That Makes You

by Moriah McStay

What if your life had two trajectories that were almost the same, but with slight nuances. What if you never had that scar on your face? These are the questions “Everything That Makes You” asks. The reader follows the same girl in two stories. Moving between them feels like a game, or a great song—exciting, unpredictable, and so compelling. Because luck may determine our paths, but maybe it’s who we are that determines our luck. You will not be able to put this book down—all the more reason to come listen to McStay read this Tuesday!

Moriah says: “I love Mr. Darcy, guacamole, Hob Nobs, indie music, consignment stores, Harry Potter, and love stories.”

While these books may be for the young “adults” of the world, they are also for the young at heart! Visit Lemuria on Tuesday at 5 p.m. to hear Gray and McStay read from their books and explain their writing process.

Written by Clara 

I started 2015 in the mood for short stories. Maybe welcoming a new year had my mind ready to consume as much as possible in so few pages, or, more likely, maybe with the prospect of a whole year ahead of me, I just wasn’t ready to commit to anything longer. Either way, I scanned through my “to read” list, bumped a few books in line on the shelf, and added a few more to suit my mind-state. One of the first to get its turn in my hands was a debut collection I remembered seeing in a Buzzfeed article: Thomas Pierce’s Hall of Small Mammals.

In this collection, you can expect to encounter Ice Age animals brought to the Deep South and named after child stars, medical mysteries involving government conspiracies, and the difficulties of home invasion for those suffering short term memory loss. Yet, I hesitate to start describing these stories with the word “weird,” because as strange as some of them are, they are not stories about weird things. While many of Pierce’s stories contain an unrealistic element, the strange parts never seem to take center stage. It is hard to describe what goes on in some of them without getting hung up on extinct creatures returning to life or separate lives being lived while waking and while asleep, but these devices are only there as background noise for the relationships on display. Pierce is writing about people, their beliefs, their place in their own worlds, and their relationships. The fun, often very funny, part of reading these stories is witnessing (more or less) reasonable people in (mostly) unreasonable situations.

It was hard to choose a favorite among the stories in this collection, but the one that stayed with me the longest was itself a small collection of vignettes involving people falling down. In this story, Pierce quickly introduces a number of characters through incidents in which they each take a tumble. Increasingly funny as you read one character after another biting it harder than the last, I think this story exemplifies what Pierce set out to do with his collection. The falling characters become a spectacle, one that others find themselves drawn to watch in their moments of misfortune, ultimately because we can all relate to those most embarrassing, most human moments.

While none of the stories directly overlap, there are clues throughout that all those he has written about here inhabit the same universe. Partly because of this, reading Hall of Small Mammals is a lot like a visit to the zoo. Each story is contained in its own exhibit, and you wander from one to the next, expecting to peer through the glass and find something you don’t encounter every day. The downside to Pierce’s style is the separation he has created from the characters. Almost like a zoo spectator, I was content to watch the characters in their created environment, giggle from my side of the bars, then move on to the next without much significant connection. While entertaining, you don’t feel like you’re missing much because there are other cages to see, go ahead, and move along. This makes Hall of Small Mammals a quick read, one you can laugh over before passing to a friend.

Written by Matt