“I Will Survive: Deadly Curses, Deadly Games”: Melissa Albert, Alex Aster, S. Isabelle, Aurora Dominguez

Alex Aster is an author of middle-grade fiction, including the Emblem Island series. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied creative writing. As we learn in Lightlark (Amulet Books), every 100 years the island of Lightlark appears to host the Centennial, a deadly game played only by the rulers of six realms. The invitation to the game is a summons, a call to embrace victory and ruin, baubles and blood. The Centennial offers its players one final chance to break the curses that have plagued their realms for centuries. Each ruler has something to hide, and each curse is uniquely wicked. To destroy the curses, one ruler must die. Isla Crown is the young ruler of Wildling – a realm of temptresses cursed to kill anyone with whom they fall in love. They are feared and despised – and they are counting on Isla to end their suffering. To survive at the Centennial, Isla must lie, cheat, and betray – even as love complicates everything.

Aurora Dominguez is an educator and writer based in Hollywood, Florida. She worked as an editor and writer at such places as the Miami Herald and Where magazine before moving from the newsroom to the classroom. Currently, she contributes as a reviewer and writer for places such as Booklist. She also recently received a full scholarship to attend Oxford University in England, was a top 50 Disney Teacher in the United States, and won the honor of being Teacher of the Year at Boca Raton High School in 2022. She will be at Miami Book Fair 2022 to moderate “I Will Survive: Deadly Curses, Deadly Games,” a panel on YA fantasy books.

Melissa Albert is a former bookseller, YA lit blogger, and The New York Times and indie bestselling author of the Hazel Wood series (The Hazel Wood, The Night Country, Tales from the Hinterland). Her work has been translated into more than 20 languages and included in The New York Times list of Notable Children’s Books. On the way home from a party, 17-year-old Ivy and her soon-to-be ex nearly run over a nude young woman standing in the middle of a tree-lined road. It’s only the first in a string of increasingly eerie events and offerings in Our Crooked Hearts (Flatiron Books). There’s also a dead rabbit in the driveway, a bizarre concoction buried in the backyard, a box of childhood keepsakes hidden in her parents’ safe, and, most unsettling, corroded recollections of Ivy and her enigmatic mother’s past resurfacing with the help of the boy next door. Is there more to her mother than meets the eye? Are the supernatural forces she messed with coming back to haunt Ivy and her friend? The darkness is closing in. Our Crooked Hearts is a contemporary fantasy full of secrets, lies, bad choices, and dangerous magic.

S. Isabelle is a reader, writer, and hoarder of books. After earning a master’s degree in library science, she took that love of reading to youth librarianship. Her short story “Break” was featured in the anthology Foreshadow: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading & Writing YA. The Witchery (Scholastic Press), her debut YA novel, follows Logan, a new witch arriving at Mesmortes Coven Academy in Haelsford, Florida. At the Academy, the infamous Red Three take her under their wings. There is Iris, a deathwitch, who wants nothing more than to break the town’s curse; Thalia, the talented greenwitch, on the run from her religious family and her past; and Jailah, an extraordinary witch whose thirst for power may yet lead her down a dark path. With the Haunting Season approaching, Wolves will soon rise from the swamp to kill. Humans and witches must work together to survive the yearly onslaught, but the history between them is long and bloodied. Still, when students of the Hammersmitt School start turning up dead, the witches realize they’ll have to stop the Wolves themselves. Yet old dangers lie in wait.