First one on the Disney Ride

Roshani Chokshi 13C, New York Times best-selling author of young adult fantasies including The Star-Touched Queen and A Crown of Wishes, credits her success to her classmates at Emory. "I'm grateful that Emory surrounded me with exceptional people, because it cured me of narcissism very quickly," says Chokshi. "If someone had told me I was the best writer in class, I'd be writing depressing, midlife-crisis, suburbia literary fiction." Instead, she is the first signed author to the newly launched imprint—a kind of subdivision under the Disney umbrella brand—spearheaded by middle-grade fiction legend Rick Riordan of Percy Jackson fame. Her latest, Aru Shah and the End of Time, will launch Rick Riordan Presents, a series focusing on mythological adventures from non-Western cultures. "You guys have been asking about a Percy Jackson-esque take on Hindu mythology, and let me tell you, Rosh does it better than I ever could," Riordan writes on his website. "Aru Shah is a smart and salty middle school girl who just wants to impress her snooty private school friends. She takes them on a tour of the Indian American Museum her mom curates, where her friends dare her to do the one thing she is forbidden to do: Light an ancient lamp that will supposedly start the end of the world."