Liesa Abrams News Today

With more than 30 authors and illustrators introducing and signing new work at CI2023, booksellers will head home with tall to-be-read stacks and an abundance of fresh ideas.

In these title close-ups, authors and editors discuss their thoughts on creating books within the burgeoning middle grade subgenre of mythology-inspired fantasy-adventures.

Publishers are riding a rich new wave of mythology-based fantasy adventures for middle graders; we asked editors of some of the new and forthcoming books in this robust category to share their views about its growth.

You might guess that a children’s book editor who publishes a lot of fantasy grew up loving the Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Prydain, but Fear of Flying? Liesa Abrams, Vice President and Editor in Chief of the new Random House Children’s Books imprint Labyrinth Road, talks about how the young reader she was became the editor she is today.

Born in Exeter, in the southwest of England, Esme Symes-Smith spent a great deal of time in Cornwall, which would later influence the setting of their debut novel, Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston, a middle grade fantasy in which a nonbinary would-be knight pushes back against gender stereotypes and restrictions.