Petra Mayer was part of the NPR Books team, and as such we had attended many of the same local book events, and I had even chatted with her about the romance book club.
She was a regular fourth chair on "Pop Culture Happy Hour" and had written, edited, and wrangled good portions of the book coverage on NPR. She was unafraid of genre fiction, and willing to wade happily and deeply into romance, YA, fantasy, and various combinations of the above.
She grew up in DC in the neighborhood I now live in, and was among other things a cat guardian.
She died suddenly this weekend: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/13/1055585327/npr-books-editor-petra-mayer-has-died?utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=npr It has been a year of a lot of death on a lot of levels.
My sincere condolences to her loved ones and colleagues.
I'm gonna go read a nerdy romance in her honor.
Here is a link to when she was featured on Faces of NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-extra/2018/06/11/618848485/faces-of-npr-petra-mayer