KELLY BARNHILL, author of “Dreadful Young Ladies: And Other Stories” at the Boston Public Library

Award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author KELLY BARNHILL’s short fiction collection teems with uncanny characters whose stories unfold in worlds at once strikingly human and eerily original. The stories in Dreadful Young Ladies feature bold, reality-bending fantasy underscored by rich universal themes of love, death, jealousy, and hope.

Barnhill lives in Minnesota with her husband and three children. She is the author of four novels, most recently The Girl Who Drank the Moon, winner of the 2017 John Newbery Medal for the year’s most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. She is also the winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Parents’ Choice Gold Award, the Texas Library Association Texas Bluebonnet Award, and a Charlotte Huck Honor. She also has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the Andre Norton Award, and the PEN/USA literary prize.

Gregory Maguire, best-known for his book Wicked, a reimagining of the life of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West from Oz. His latest work is Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker, which intertwines the story of the famous Nutcracker with the life of the mysterious toy maker named Drosselmeier who carves him.