When’s the last time you were transported to a magical world?
New York Times best-selling author Tracy Wolff is known for bringing supernatural stories to life. Usually, Tracy’s name brings to mind the hit young adult Crave series, but her latest project is taking her out of the YA space and into a whole new world. The Aftermyth is Tracy’s middle grade debut and your first step into a magical, Greek mythology-centered school you won’t want to leave.
The Aftermyth is the first book in a middle grade series that takes readers to Anaximander’s Academy, where students learn from and explore Greek mythology with a little help from the gods themselves. New Anaximander’s student Penelope Weaver is a legacy Athena, but things are not going according to plan. Maybe it’s the fates up to their tricks, but Penelope’s first year at Anaximander’s is all wrong from the moment she tries to cross the bridge onto campus (even though things seem to be going . If the entire campus playing tricks on her wasn’t enough, Penelope isn’t placed in Athena Hall, and she may have accidentally uncovered a mythological mystery that no one wants to talk about.
Tracy’s personal fascination with Greek mythology makes The Aftermyth feel personal, and the bits of her own biography that trickled into the book will make you even more intrigued by her new series. Read on for our full conversation with Tracy!
Showstopper Magazine Online: Hi, Tracy! What was your inspiration for The Aftermyth?
Tracy Wolff: Hi! First off, I want to say thank you so much for having me! I’m super excited to be here.I had several different inspirations for The Aftermyth. One is the fact that I love Greek mythology. The stories and the characters are so compelling that you can’t help but be fascinated by them. My first clear memory of Greek mythology is from when I was five or six. My dad was watching Clash of the Titans, and I curled up next to him to watch, too. I remember being fascinated by Pegasus, Medusa, and Andromeda, and wanting to know more about them and everyone else in their world.But as I got older and learned more about mythology in general and Greek mythology specifically, I couldn’t help but realize that many of the myths I was reading about vilified women. I also realized that most of the writers of these myths were men, and they blamed women for things that were far outside their control.In The Aftermyth, I focus on the Pandora’s Box myth because it’s a myth that has always bothered me. Pandora was created by two male gods—Zeus and Hephaestus—to punish two male titans—Prometheus and Epimetheus. Zeus had all the gods give Pandora gifts to make her attractive to the titans, cursed her with unending curiosity, gave her a jar filled with all kinds of evil, then told her not to open it. Yet, somehow, she’s the one who gets blamed for releasing all the bad things into the world? It’s absurd and completely unfair. The Aftermyth is my attempt to put a new spin on this story, to tell herstory instead of history, and maybe change the way people think about Greek myths and the women they portray. And it’s not just Pandora who got a raw deal. So many women in Greek mythology—from Persephone to Medusa to Helen of Troy—were blamed and, often punished, for things that weren’t within their control.And of course, I also wanted to tell an action-packed story about a group of teens in a fantastical setting as they learn to navigate their world and decide who they want to be. The Aftermyth series will follow Penelope, Fifi, Kyrian, and their friends from their first year at the mystical, magical Anaximander’s Academy through graduation six years later.
SMO: This is your middle-grade debut! What was it like to transition from YA to middle grade? Were there any challenges or unexpected benefits to writing for younger readers?
Tracy: I am a huge middle grade reader—as my boys were growing up, there was nothing I loved more than cuddling up and reading fantastical tales aloud to them before bed—and I was thrilled to be able to write The Aftermyth! One of my favorite things about writing the book was how much fun I had coming up with cool worldbuilding stuff that I thought would appeal to readers—a giant gumball machine that assigns you to your hall, a campus that spins like a Rubik’s cube, upside down waterfalls and creepy, tree-lined paths, a giant disco apple, and a vulture named Agatha that loves to swoop down and pick up unsuspecting students, just to name a few. Oh, and snakes. So many snakes.
SMO: The Aftermyth is full of whimsical happenings and twists. One detail we can’t get over is the chapter titles! Tell us about your process for writing titles like “It’s all Ancient Greek to Me” and “You Snooze, You Muse.”
Tracy: Thank you so much for asking about the chapter titles—they’re one of my favorite things! I love playing on cliches, famous sayings, and movie and song titles to make funny titles that fit the chapters. It’s particularly fun because, in my house, it’s often a group event. Some titles come to me right away as I’m writing, but others take more time to get right. I love sitting down with my kids, my partner, and my friends and brainstorming funny titles that make us laugh. “Great Gumballs of Fire” is one of my faves.
SMO: You reference so many myths, historical places, and figures. What was your research process for this series?
Tracy: I know a lot about Greek mythology just because it has fascinated me for most of my life. But when I sat down to write The Aftermyth, I did spend a lot of time reading D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths and researching the different Greek gods, the Titans, and many of the other different characters, myths, magical creatures, and monsters that exist in Greek mythology.
SMO: Speaking of figures, the students of Anaximander’s Academy each belong to one of five halls: Athena, Aphrodite, Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. How did you choose which deities would represent the school with so many to choose from?
Tracy: The full answer to that is a spoiler for the rest of the series, so I can’t get into too much detail. But the reason I decided on those five were because a couple of them are my favorites (Aphrodite and Hades) and the others have so much power and so many myths about them that I want to explore as the series goes on.
SMO: What hall do you think you would belong to?
Tracy: Oh, I am an Aphrodite girl all the way! Glitter, feather boas, a giant disco apple that plays random songs when you walk by, and a giant candy room with every candy imaginable in it? What’s not to love?But all the houses have different things going for them, and my publisher was awesome enough to put out a quiz that people can take to figure out which house they belong to. You can find it here if you want to check it out: https://www.simonandschuster.com/p/aftermyth-quiz
SMO: Do you have a personal connection to the myths in The Aftermyth? What draws you to these stories?
Tracy: I grew up with these myths, and so many of them speak to me. The tale of Perseus is the first Greek myth I remember being exposed to, but as I got older, I was fascinated with so many of the stories. Some of the myths I feel personally connected to are those about Medusa, Icarus, Pandora, Orpheus, and Theseus, and I can’t wait to explore them in The Aftermyth series.
SMO: What do you think makes ancient stories like Greek myths valuable for middle grade readers?
Tracy: Myths are exciting, filled with heroes and villains, fabulous creatures like Pegasus and monsters like Cerberus. The characters in Greek myths have epic adventures that engage the imagination and make anything seem possible while also teaching critical thinking, problem-solving, and cultural literacy. And this goes well beyond Greek mythology. Myths from all cultures and all regions of the world are filled with engaging characters facing problems and situations that are overwhelmingly stacked against them.
What I love most about myths is that they’re really stories about people who are still figuring themselves out. The characters in myths don’t have everything together. They mess up sometimes, and sometimes they make bad choices. Often, they’re in situations that feel unfair or insurmountable, and they still have to keep going. I think that’s something that anyone can relate to, but especially middle grade and teen readers.
But myths also remind us that feeling unsure or different doesn’t mean you’re weak or there’s something wrong with you. Instead, it often means you’re about to discover something that makes you powerful. These stories have survived for thousands of years because they understand a universal truth—growing up is difficult, but a lot of fun, fantastic things happen along the way.
SMO: How did your protagonist, Penelope Weaver, come to life?
Tracy: As an idea comes to me, my main characters tend to show up in the back of my head and start talking to me. Penelope is no different. As I started thinking about Anaximander’s Academy and a story based around the Pandora’s Box myth, she appeared and had a lot to say. I knew from the start that she viewed herself as an Athena girl, but I knew I couldn’t let her get assigned to that hall—she would be way too comfortable there and comfortable is the last thing you want your main character to be.
A fun thing that I didn’t intend but that totally came out after I started writing Penelope is that, in a lot of ways, she’s very similar to my college roommate, who also happens to be my best friend to this day. And it turns out that Penelope’s roommate, Fifi, is a lot like me. One of the many reasons I had such a great time writing The Aftermyth is because I got to explore the beginning of our friendship from my bestie’s point of view. At the beginning, she had no idea what to make of me, which is pretty much how Penelope feels about Fifi. As the story went on, it was great fun exaggerating those differences and making all kinds of funny things happen.
SMO: What do you hope readers take from Penelope’s journey in The Aftermyth?
Tracy: There are so many things I want readers to take from The Aftermyth. One of the things I hope they see is the power of female friendships and also that there are all kinds of ways to be a strong girl/woman. In our society, we tend to think that there’s only one way for a woman to be strong, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The girls and women I wrote in The Aftermyth are all strong in different ways. Penelope’s strength comes from her resourcefulness, her ability to pivot and keep going no matter how messed up things get. Fifi’s strength comes from her heart—she’s a born nurturer, one who will stand up to anyone or anything for the people she cares about. Dr. Themis, the headmaster, is a brilliant and powerful woman with groundbreaking ideas. These women, and the others who appear in this book as well as those who will come in subsequent books, represent so many of the different ways that women can own their power.
Another thing I want readers to get from The Aftermyth is how important it is to be true to yourself and your destiny. So many times, people think they have to be the person that the people around them expect them to be. Parents, friends, teachers, siblings—they all have ideas about who you should be. Real strength, real power, comes from figuring out who you really are and not being afraid to own it. Penelope and her friends don’t have everything figured out yet, but they’re on the right road, and I can’t wait to see who they are at the end of the series.
SMO: The Aftermyth is the first book in a fantasy series, and you left readers on a major cliffhanger! Is there anything you can tell us about what to expect in future books?
Tracy: I am currently working on book two, and it is a wild ride! There isn’t a lot I can say without giving spoilers away, but I will say that there’s more action, more danger, and a lot more twists and turns in the second book. And if you want something more concrete, I can tell you that I’ve spent a lot of time recently researching the monsters of Greek mythology …
Thanks so much for having me xoxo
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The Aftermyth by Tracy Wolff hits shelves on February 3, 2026 and is available for preorder now.