Phase two of the High Republic storytelling era launches in October, and it’s actually set 150 years prior to the events of phase one!
And in telling these next chapters (or past chapters, in a way) of the story, the team is actually adding four new authors to the project. I mentioned this the other day but wanted to circle back around to it to specifically address this, as Zoraida Córdova, George Mann, Tessa Gratton, and Lydia Kang are all jumping on board. They will join Charles Soule, Cavan Scott, Claudia Gray, Daniel José Older, and Justina Ireland as the writers on the era, expanding the team just as they prepare to expand the story.
While these new authors don’t have quite the Star Wars storytelling experience that most of the original five did prior to the era, they are not total newcomers either. George Mann has the most Star Wars work amongst them, having written Myths & Fables and Dark Legends (both of which are collections of short in-universe stories), a few issues of the Star Wars Adventures comic, and the High Republic children’s books “Showdown at the Fair” and the upcoming “The Battle for Starlight.” So he’s not only written Star Wars, but also High Republic stuff. Córdova wrote A Crash of Fate, while also adding a story in both From a Certain Point of View and The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark. Gratton wrote a story that’s in the upcoming Stories of Jedi and Sith, while Kang wrote a story for From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back.
We don’t know much about what their initial High Republic projects will be, but we do know that Justina Ireland and Tessa Gratton are working together to write the first young adult novel for phase two.
In the big picture, this is actually a significant development for the era, because it marks the first time new authors have been added. The original five have been working for a few years now on the project, working closely together with each other and with Michael Siglain (the Creative Director of Lucasfilm Publishing) and the Lucasfilm Story Group. These original five authors – Soule, Scott, Gray, Older, and Ireland – have mapped out the entire story and have a larger plan in place for where they are going, what story they are telling, and important details to get there. So it’s not just as simple as hiring new authors and telling them to run with it, as I’m sure they’re brought in on the larger plan that’s going on as well. I’m hoping that they can quickly acclimate to the collaborative nature of the project that has made it much stronger overall.
But I also think it’s a really good and healthy thing for the High Republic to add new authors, and I’m hoping that this means we’ll be getting even more content coming (as opposed to some of the other authors backing off a bit). Bringing new voices and fresh perspectives into this group hopefully will only serve to make the whole project even stronger.
Star Wars Thoughts 