First Draft Episode #216: Kass Morgan (a.k.a. Mallory Kass)
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Kass Morgan, New York Times bestselling author of The 100 and Light Years (a.k.a. Mallory Kass, senior editor at Scholastic). Supernova, the sequel to Light Years, is out now!
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Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode
Kass’s father wrote for Seinfeld
Paula Abdul (her iconic Forever Your Girl is a great starting point) and Janet Jackson (oh my god, where to begin? Rhythm Nation is a must, and The Velvet Rope is everything— also apparently she wrote a book! True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself) were two pop stars Kass was totally unaware of when she moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles at age 11
Once she figured out that she was not destined to be an academic, Kass moved to New York and started an internship at Scholastic with Arthur Levine, who edited a little book series called Harry Potter (when she started at the publisher, Levine was working on Deathly Hallows in secret)
Kass’s bosses at Scholastic, Rachel Griffiths and David Levithan (New York Times bestselling author of Every Day and Boy Meets Boy), were instrumental in making her feel comfortable pursuing writing as well as editing
Cheryl B. Klein, associate editor at Scholastic and Kass’s co-worker, encouraged Kass to talk to Alloy Entertainment, a book packaging firm known for projects such as Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar and Vampire Diaries by L. J. Smith. Alloy contacted Kass to work on a new project, The 100!
I loved Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, which features a space school, and so did Kass!
Looking for Alaska by John Green (which is about to be a Hulu show) is the type of boarding school narrative that we’re more accustomed to reading — Kass threw the boarding school into space!
My humblebrag about moderating a panel on worldbuilding which featured N.K. Jemisin (and also Marie Lu, Marissa Meyer, and Joe Hill!) at BookCon.
Thanks for Listening!
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