A Fantastic Success

Marc Gregson BA’17 was in the middle of teaching seventh period when he got the email that a publisher wanted to acquire his novel.

“I said, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and my students turned to look at me. Then I started crying,” says the middle school English teacher. “When I told them, they all cheered.”

The emotional moment capped off years of Gregson’s efforts to get published. “I was trying to write things that I thought would be popular,” he explains of his earlier rejected novels. Then he had a lightbulb moment: “I thought, ‘I’m just going to write a book that I’m passionate about.’ ”

The result was a YA fantasy, Sky’s End, the first in what would become a trilogy. Called Above the Black, the series takes place in the “Skylands”—a world of islands floating above toxic black clouds, with monsters, a cutthroat meritocracy system, and dangerous duels for status and fortune.

Gregson, who dabbled in the U’s game design program before getting the teaching bug, says the fantastical worlds of video games influenced his writing.

“I had always been interested in a civilization set in the clouds,” he says. “I also wanted to explore how young people would be shaped by an extreme meritocracy system where mercy and compassion are considered weaknesses.”

Released in January 2024, Sky’s End became a New York Times bestseller, earning rave reviews and awards including a Kirkus Reviews Best Teen & YA Fantasy Books honor. The second volume, Among Serpents, followed a year later. Then came even more exciting news—a movie deal, which Gregson announced to ecstatic students in a video that went viral.

Gregson is serving as a consulting producer on the film,  which is now in development with Antoine Fuqua’s Hill District Media. A release date has yet to be announced, but Gregson hopes it will hit theaters in the next few years. In the meantime, Above the Black Book Three, Downfall, will come out in January 2026 to waiting fans—his students included.