After the Nova

When COVID-19 spread around the world, many young people lost the everyday contact they had with friends, teachers, clubs, and their wider communities. To give readers aged 11 to 17 a place to share their own voices, the publisher Unapologetic Voice House launched YA Stories, a young adult imprint. After the Nova is the first anthology the imprint has released.

The collection brings together stories of perseverance and strength, most led by female characters. Its themes include escape, isolation, and the way time moves on. Some tales unfold in the familiar comfort of home and school, while others take readers across oceans, over mountains, through open fields, and out among the stars.

The settings range widely too: some stories are set in the future and others in the distant past. What links them all is the question of how people recover after a disaster has struck.