Margaret Stohl


Margaret Stohl is an American novelist. She is the author of 13 novels, as well as 5 volumes of comics and several videogames. She was born in Pasadena, California, and now lives in Santa Monica.

Writing career

Novels

Stohl is best known as the co-author, along with her friend Kami Garcia, of the "Caster Chronicles" book series, starting with Beautiful Creatures. The series, currently consisting of four books, two spin off books, and a novella collection, is generally classified as a contemporary young adult fantasy novel, with particular interest for teens. It is set in the fictional small town of Gatlin, South Carolina in the Southern United States, and deals with a group of townspeople, friends, witches, and numerous other magical creatures.
Beautiful Creatures debuted on the New York Times Best Seller List and quickly became an international bestseller, published in 39 countries and translated into 28 languages. It was made into the 2013 film Beautiful Creatures. which featured an all-star cast including Alden Ehrenreich as well as Emmy Rossum, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, Viola Davis, Zoe Deutch, Rachel Brosnahan and Thomas Mann. The film adaptation was written and directed by Richard LaGravenese. Both the books and the film adaptation have found wide audiences.
Her sci-fi duology the Icons Series is in development at Alcon Entertainment, the team behind the Beautiful Creatures feature film.
In April 2017, Margaret released her eleventh YA novel, Royce Rolls, a satirical look at Los Angeles' celebrity culture. The book was published by Disney's Freeform Press, and released with a trailer lampooning a reality television family. In 2018 and 2019, Margaret collaborated with her former husband Lewis Peterson on her first two middle-grade novels, Cats Vs. Robots: This is War and Cats Vs. Robots: Now With Fleas. Both books were illustrated by their child, Kay Peterson, a student at

Comics

In 2014, Margaret began to work with Sana Amanat of Marvel Comics and Emily Meehan of Marvel Press on a series of YA novels featuring the popular Marvel Avengers character Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. Black Widow Forever Red was an instant New York Times bestseller, and given generally favorable reviews, including an "A" rating by Entertainment Weekly. Black Widow Red Vengeance soon followed.
After writing two one-shots for Marvel Comics Margaret was asked to write the Mighty Captain Marvel comic in December 2016, followed by Generations, Legacy: Dark Origins, and Life of Captain Marvel. After G. Willow Wilson, Margaret became the second female creator ever invited to attend the Marvel Creative Summit.
Life of Captain Marvel, a retelling of Carol Danvers' origin story in advance of her debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was well-received and well-reviewed on July 18, 2018. G. Willow Wilson tweeted, "I have rarely heard editors talk about any book the way they talk about this one...an innovative, literary upending of the superhero genre. Do not miss!" Margaret has previously released three collected volumes of Mighty Captain Marvel as trade editions; "Life" was the fourth.
In 2019, Marvel announced that Margaret would be penning a new Spider-man: Noir series for a March 2020 release.

Games

Margaret also works in the video game industry. Notable writing credits include Activision's adventure games The Elk Moon Murder, Zork Nemesis and ' ; Westwood Studios' real-time strategy titles Dune 2000, ', '; Infogrames' Slave Zero; Midway Games' ' and the 2002 Defender remake; Activision's Apocalypse and Fantastic Four. In 1999, Margaret co-founded the developer 7 Studios with her former husband Lewis Peterson; they ran the studio together until 2011, when 7 was acquired by Activision.
After taking a hiatus from the game industry to establish her career as a novelist, in 2017 Margaret began to work as a consulting writer for Activision Blizzard again, ultimately joining the game developer Bungie as a Narrative Director for Destiny 2. In July 2018, her twitter and instagram profiles listed her position as Bungie Incubation Narrative Director.
Her brother, David Stohl, runs Infinity Ward and works on the Call of Duty franchise.

Education

A graduate of Amherst College, where she won the Knox Prize for English Literature, Margaret earned a master's degree in English from Stanford University and completed coursework for a doctorate in American Studies at Yale University. Margaret was a teaching assistant in Romantic Poetry at Stanford and in Film Studies at Yale. She attended the Creative Writing program of the University of East Anglia, where she was mentored by the Scottish poet George MacBeth.

Book Festivals

Margaret co-founded two literacy-based non-profits for teen and youth, the YALLFEST book festival in Charleston, South Carolina in 2011 and the YALLWEST book festival in Santa Monica, California in 2014 The two festivals are the largest dedicated youth and teen festivals in the United States. As an outspoken LGBT advocate and parent of a non-binary child, Margaret is also a regional board member for Facing History and Ourselves, an organization dedicated to advocating empathy and eliminating bias in schools.

Novels

;The Beautiful Creatures Novels
There are four books in the series, along with five additional e-novellas. They are often known to fans as "The Caster Chronicles."
  1. Beautiful Creatures
  2. Beautiful Darkness
  3. Dream Dark e-novella only
  4. Beautiful Chaos
  5. Beautiful Redemption
;The Dangerous Creatures Novels
There are two books in the spin-off series featuring popular characters from the original series.
  1. Dangerous Dream e-novella only
  2. Dangerous Creatures
  3. Dangerous Deception
;The Icons Series
There are two books in the series thus far.
  1. Icons
  2. Idols
;Marvel's Black Widow Prose Novels
There are two books in the Black Widow YA series, thus far.
  1. Black Widow: Forever Red
  2. Black Widow: Red Vengeance
Royce Rolls
Cats vs Robots: This is War ' and Cats vs Robots: Now With Fleas '''

Comics

Spider-man: Noir for Marvel Comics, edited by Devin Lewis, art by Juan Ferrerya.
Batwoman/Supergirl: World's Finest Giant #1 for DC Comics, "Sister Sister," one shot, edited by Katie Kubert, art by Laura Braga.
Life of Captain Marvel for Marvel Comics, edited by Sarah Brunstadt and Sana Amanat, art by Carlos Pacheco and Marguerite Sauvage.
Mighty Captain Marvel for Marvel Comics