Countdown to YallFest - An Interview With Ransom Riggs

45 DAYS TO GO!!!!!  

Today's interview is with Ransom Riggs and I am super excited about it.  His book, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, is on the top of my to-read list.  The cover fascinates me in both a creepy and an "I can't look away" way.  I think we were meant to be friends.  For real.  I'll let you know how it goes when I tell him this next month :)

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

I grew up in Florida, went to Kenyon College in Ohio, then film school at USC in LA, where I still live. I write books and screenplays, blog daily for mentalfloss.com, and make short films.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is my first novel. I'm really excited about it -- it was challenging and rewarding and I hope people like it. If you read that and like the found photographs in it, you might be interested in a book comprised entirely of found photographs that I have coming out January 2012 from HarperCollins. It's called Talking Pictures. You can find sneak peeks by doing a search for "mental floss talking pictures" (I included a number of images in blogs there) and I made a kinda-sorta book trailer for it, which is on my youtube page: youtube.com/ransriggs.

Also, watch out for a Miss Peregrine book trailer, which I'm working on right now! I get to go to Belgium and film inside creepy abandoned chateaus, which I'm *really* looking forward to. 

AUTHOR Q&A

What one thing do you need to have when you write?

Silence.  My noice-cancelling headphones have become almost essential.

What is the hardest line to write- the first or the last?

The first.  I rewrite and rewrite it a million times.  The last comes easy.

Tell us 5 random facts about yourself.

I'm six foot four.  I lived on a working farm until I was five.  I used to know how to cook Indian food but now I've forgotten.  I love documentaries.  One day, I will conquer the moon.

What are you working on now?

A novel for Little, Brown - the plot of which is SECRET! (Sort of, for now.  But I'm really excited about it.)

What is your favorite genre to write in? To Read?

Oh, definitely YA to write in.  I read everything, lots of YA, lots of adult, nonfiction of all sorts.  I even read poetry when I'm feeling ambitious.  I think it's crucial to have lots of different influences.  If you only read in the genre you write in, your writing will sound like everything else that's already out there.