Maggie the Dread (A Novel)

The end is nigh. Bring snacks! When Sebastian accidentally releases a long-imprisoned vampire-goddess after a rough day at school, he sets off a chain of events that will result in the destruction of reality as he knows it, unless he can find a way to stop it. "A wonderful romp with a fresh premise." -School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW "A must-read." -Booklist Seventh-grader Sebastian Onizuka is having a terrible Friday. He overslept after making a video game, spilled orange juice on his pants so it looked like he peed on himself, and then accidentally freed a vampire-goddess from a cursed stone obelisk in the detention room. Wait, what? Centuries ago, twelve-year-old goddess Maggorthulax was imprisoned to stop her from devouring the universe. But now that she's free, Maggorthulax--or Maggie as she likes to be called--is going to destroy reality during the upcoming solar eclipse. Despite being the Princess of the Abyss, Maggie would rather eat shrimp chips, blip bullies in and out of existence, and binge-watch episodes of The Adventures of Toilet Man than fulfill her evil destiny. Besides, she's never had a friend before meeting Sebastian, so she'd like to hang out a little longer before wiping out the universe. There's just one catch . . . there's nothing she can do to stop the end of the world. In this laugh-out-loud book about friendship and bravery, Sebastian and Maggie have six days to find an ancient spell, navigate middle school, and save the world.

Austin Gilkeson writes stories for children and essays for people of all ages. He has written for The New York Review of Books, Tin House, McSweeney's, ForeignPolicy, Vulture, Catapult, Tor.com, Tor Nightfire, The Toast, The Rumpus, Points in Case, Unbound Worlds, and the Chicago Reader online. His essays also appearin the anthologies Body Language (Catapult, 2022), Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan (Camphor Press, 2020), and Down the Block: An Anthology of City Life (Metrolingua, 2009). Austin grew up in the Carolinas and is a graduate of William & Mary and the University of Chicago. He spent two years on the Japanese island of Tsushima, sixteen years in Chicago, and now lives with his wife and son outside Houston where he works as an English teacher.