Claudia Gray

Claudia Gray is, quite simply, good at Star Wars. Peruse our content, listen to our podcast, or hang out in our Discord server or Facebook group, and you’ll quickly find that she’s a favorite of the Youtini team. Her Lost Stars is part of our collection of Essential Six Books, and for many of us, her four Star Wars books each have spots high on our list of favorites in this new era of Canon.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: if you think the “Young Adult” label means these books aren’t for you, you should really think again: The category only refers to the age range of the protagonist, not the reading level. And regardless of whether she’s portraying young pilots and princesses or Senators and Jedi Masters, Gray is a master at developing complex and nuanced new characters who immediately draw you into their plights; Lost Stars co-protagonists Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree have, for many readers, occupied honored places in the pantheon of Expanded Universe characters. 

Gray also excels at taking characters we’ve met on screen and capturing them in a way that not only honors their cinematic portrayal, but expands on our understanding of them. In the first chapter of Master and Apprentice, she so perfectly captures the voices of Qui-Gon and Obi Wan that you’ll be hard pressed not to hear Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor in your head, and the way you view the pair’s relationship in The Phantom Menace will be forever changed. After Leia: Princess of Alderaan and Bloodline, Gray may as well be considered Leia Organa’s official biographer (if there were such a thing for fictional characters). 

Her Star Wars work has also appeared in From a Certain Point of View, the collection of forty short stories released to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Episode IV. In it, she casts the relationship between Qui Gon and Obi Wan in an even more fascinating light in a short story entitled “Master and Apprentice.”

Perhaps her most iconic addition to Star Wars, however, is her work with The High Republic, the marvelously successful publishing initiative. Alongside Justina Ireland, Daniel José Older, Cavan Scott, and Charles Soule, she has acted as a story architect of the era since its inception - cementing her as one of the chief creators of an entire era of Star Wars storytelling.

We can only hope that she'll continue her work in a galaxy far, far away for years and years to come.