An exciting fiction YA anthology that celebrates the new experiences and final moments teenagers face on their journey into adulthood from editor Laura Silverman and a cast of spectacular contributors.
From first breakups and romantic vampire encounters to last band performances and the deadly end of a friendship, Firsts and Lasts is an anthology that is just as unpredictable as being a teenager. While each of these stories span different genres and styles, they all perfectly capture the big emotions—confusion, joy, uneasiness, and anticipation—that many teens experience as they grow up.
Whether you are hopelessly in love and not sure how to tell your crush, going through loss and can't fully process it, or just trying to figure out where you belong in the world, this collection of sixteen stories has something for every reader.
Stories written by: Adi Alsaid, Keah Brown, Monica Gomez-Hira, Kika Hatzopoulou, Shaun David Hutchinson, Amanda Joy, Loan Le, Joy McCullough, Yamile Saied Méndez, Anna Meriano, Nina Moreno, Tess Sharpe, Laura Silverman, Rachel Lynn Solomon, Diana Urban, and Julian Winters.
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"Each story flows nicely into the next, almost like new friends swapping stories. Alongside each milestone’s potential universality, each short story revels in specificity to create glimpses of fully realized characters. The entries that are rooted in trauma or sadness, especially, demonstrate the fictional adolescents’ incredible resilience and maturity as they process these novel experiences. Beautifully sentimental and utterly relatable."
— Kirkus Reviews
Each story flows nicely into the next, almost like new friends swapping stories. Alongside each milestone’s potential universality, each short story revels in specificity to create glimpses of fully realized characters. The entries that are rooted in trauma or sadness, especially, demonstrate the fictional adolescents’ incredible resilience and maturity as they process these novel experiences. Beautifully sentimental and utterly relatable.
— Kirkus Reviews"Perfectly balanced anthology that embraces diversity across the board…The strength of the whole lies in compelling juxtapositions. Give this to readers with an eclectic taste or those looking for something outside their usual choices, as they will surely find it here.
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Laura Silverman is a voice talent and audiobook narrator.
Emily Eiden is an award-winning actress best known for her role in the 2005 film Scab. She also appeared in the television series Campus Ladies. She is the winner of the 2012 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Children’s Video, and she was named a 2013 Notable Children’s Recording by the American Library Association.
Frankie Corzo is a film and voice-over actress and audiobook narrator. She obtained a BA degree in theater studies from Montclair State University.
Shayna Small is an actress, singer, and educator based in New York, where she received her BFA in Drama from the Juilliard School. She has worked across a variety of media including theater, film and tv, music and voice-over.
Emily Eiden is an award-winning actress best known for her role in the 2005 film Scab. She also appeared in the television series Campus Ladies. She is the winner of the 2012 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Children’s Video, and she was named a 2013 Notable Children’s Recording by the American Library Association.
Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.
Caitlin Kelly, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a seasoned voice-over artist with experience in Japan and the United States. She has a BFA in drama and studied musical theater at the Collaborative Arts Project 21, an off-Broadway theater company and musical theater training conservatory. She got started in voice-over work in 2009 while living in Japan where she toured with Disney’s World of English and World Family Club as a performer and a puppeteer.
Frankie Corzo is a film and voice-over actress and audiobook narrator. She obtained a BA degree in theater studies from Montclair State University.
Lee Samuels (SAG-AFTRA) has lent his deep, “whiskey-smooth” voice to over 200 romance audiobooks; from small-town to suspense, and rom-coms to erotica. With a background in theatre, Lee’s audiobook career began in New York City when his roommate, then working as an audiobook engineer at Recorded Books, offered to help him record a few auditions for her friends’ then-new studio (Brick Shop Audio) in 2011. In his other life, he’s also a New York Times-published writer and author.