Marie Rutkoski, Alex Segura & Steve Almond: A Conversation

Alex Segura is the senior vice president of sales and marketing at Oni Press, and the author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall and the acclaimed Pete Fernandez Mystery series. He has also written comic books, most notably the superhero noir The Black Ghost, the YA music series The Archies, and the “Archie Meets” collection of crossovers. In Secret Identity: A Novel (Flatiron Books), it’s 1975, and the comic book industry is struggling but Carmen Valdez doesn’t care. She’s an assistant at Triumph Comics – it’s not Marvel or DC, but it doesn’t matter. Carmen is tantalizingly close to fulfilling her dream of writing a superhero book when one of the Triumph writers enlists her help to create a new character, “The Lethal Lynx,” Triumph’s first female hero. But her colleague is acting strangely and asks her to keep her involvement a secret. Then he’s found dead, and all of their scripts have been turned into the publisher without her name. Carmen wants to find out what happened to her colleague and hang on to her piece of the Lynx. But she finds that the secrets and resentments among the eccentrics who write comics for a living are a tangled web.

Marie Rutkoski is a New York Times bestselling author of several novels for children and young adults, including the YA novel The Shadow Society and the children’s fantasy series The Kronos Chronicles that includes The Cabinet of Wonders, The Celestial Globe, and The Jewel of the Kalderash, and a YA trilogy comprising The Winner’s Curse, The Winner’s Crime, and The Winner’s Kiss. In Real Easy: A Novel (Henry Holt and Co.), it’s 1999, and Samantha has danced for years at the Lovely Lady strip club. She does not mix work and friendship; between her jealous boyfriend and his young daughter, she has enough on her plate. But the club’s newest dancer is so clueless that Samantha feels compelled to help her learn how to navigate the hustle and drama. One night, the new girl needs a ride home, and Samantha agrees to drive her: a simple decision that turns deadly. Georgia, a dancer drawn into the ensuing murder and missing person investigation, gathers information for Holly, the detective determined to solve the case. Georgia only wants to help, but it makes her a target. And as Holly and Georgia round up their suspects, the story’s point of view shifts between dancers, detectives, children, club patrons – and the killer.

Steve Almond is the author of 10 fiction and nonfiction books, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His essays and reviews have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and other periodicals. His short stories have been selected for several anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories and Best American Mysteries. In All the Secrets of the World: A Novel (Zando), Lorena Saenz and Jenny Stallworth are paired for a school project by a teacher hoping to unite two girls from starkly different backgrounds. Jenny is pretty and popular, and her family lives a picture-perfect suburban lifestyle – from the outside. In reality, her glamorous mother, Rosemary, is needy, while her father, Marcus, spends his days teaching and his nights wandering the desert, researching the scorpions of Death Valley. For Lorena, that life is a seemingly far cry from her own, living in a small apartment with her single mother. But when Marcus disappears, Tony, Lorena’s troubled older brother, becomes the prime suspect. For Lorena, it’s the beginning of an odyssey into the desert, the secrets and lies of the Stallworths, and the dark heart of America’s criminal justice system.