Ending the year on a high note, Tristan Strong Punches a Hole In the Sky author Kwame Mbalia was named as one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Flying Start. The honor highlights debut and early career authors who are off to a particularly stellar start, and with his debut landing on the New York Times bestseller list for middle grade for eight weeks, Mbalia certainly has had a big, bright debut, which was released this October by Rick Riordan Presents at Disney.
Mbalia worked with CAKE Literary’s Dhonielle Clayton to develop the series for Disney, and a lot of Tristan’s grief hit close to home, he told Publisher’s Weekly. “I lost my father about six months before I started writing this,” he said in the piece. “It was difficult for me, and really difficult for my eldest daughter at the time. And at the outset of the book, Tristan is dealing with loss and grief, so to write about Tristan overcoming this helped us to address our own feelings.”
Check out the complete Publisher’s Weekly profile on the author here — and stay tuned for more awesome Tristan Strong series news from CAKE in the new year.