YA Panel: Don Martin & Guests

Join us for an event with debut novelist Don Martin, discussing his new book Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire. Joining Don in conversation are bestselling YA authors Meg Elison, Ryan La Sala and Claribel Ortega. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

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ACCESSIBILITY:

Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator. Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at [email protected] by Aug. 15 to request.

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Inspired by Kiki’s Delivery Service, this cozy fantasy features a queer witch in training who tries to break a mountain town’s curse.

Welcome to Firefox…

The rules here are simple:

Don’t look in the trees.

Don’t whistle in the woods at night.

Don’t answer if you hear your name called.

And remember . . . everything wants.

Verity Vox is a witch-in-training who has never met a problem her spells can’t solve. But when a cryptic plea for help sends her to the forgotten coal mining town of Foxfire, she soon learns even magic has its limits.

Verity discovers a curse was laid years ago by a traveling magician who vanished into the ancient Appalachian hills to seek greater power. Crops won’t grow. Bellies go hungry. Even treasured possessions fall apart. What’s worse, people have gone missing amidst rumors that they’ve sought out the magician who is lying in wait for those foolish or desperate enough to strike a deal with him.

The witch must break the curse, find a missing girl, and solve the mystery of what’s really under the mountain before the town falls forever into the clutches of the monster lurking in the hills.

Photo credit: Brittany Ambridge

Don Martin was born in Appalachia and now lives with his husband on a horse ranch outside of Chicago, where he produces his inquisitive interview podcast, Head On Fire. Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire is his debut novel.

Photo credit: Devin Cooper

Meg Elison is a Hugo, Philip K. Dick and Locus award winning author, as well as a Nebula, Sturgeon, and Otherwise awards finalist. A prolific short story writer and essayist, Elison has been published in Scientific American, McSweeney’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fangoria, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. She lives in the Berkshires.

Photo credit: JJ Redington

Ryan La Sala is a bestselling and award-winning author known for his genre defying, queer-centered horror and fantasy, including The Honeys, which is in development to become a major motion picture. He is also the author of Beholder, Reverie, and Be Dazzled. He has been featured in The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, and more. He writes to you from New York, overseen by his cat, Haunted Little Girl.

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author, Claribel A. Ortega is a former reporter who writes middle-grade and young adult fantasy inspired by her Dominican heritage. When she's not busy turning her obsession with eighties pop culture, magic, and video games into books, she’s co-hosting her podcast Bad Author Book Club. Claribel is a Marvel contributor and has been featured on Buzzfeed, Bustle, Good Morning America and Deadline. Claribel’s NYT bestselling debut middle grade novel Ghost Squad is being made into a feature film. Her latest book Witchlings (Scholastic) was an instant NYT and #1 Indie Bestseller.

Host or Publisher The Strand Book Store