Tahereh Mafi and Ransom Riggs on Their New Books, the Miss Peregrine Movie, and Life with a Writer

Both of you have kind of taken on this sort of monumental task. Ransom, you’re writing foundational literature for an invented people, and Tahereh, you’re writing a book that harks back to childhood classics. Can you talk about the books that inspired you in that vein, both as a child and now as writers?
RR: For me, the invented worlds of C.S. Lewis were huge for my early development, and also Stephen King. He did a lot more than just write monsters. He created a universe in a little town in Maine, where even unrelated novels would have intersecting characters and storylines. I thought building the mythology that way was so interesting and so cool.
Clearly you’re a fan of portal fiction in general, it sounds like?
RR: Doors to other worlds are definitely a big thing for me.
TM: And I was always a big fan of Alice in Wonderland, Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, The Chronicles of Narnia, anything by Roald Dahl—all of those books were just my favorite. The Prince and the Pauper, which I feel like doesn’t get enough love, was one of my favorite books growing up.

I just read read Tales of the Peculiar, and some of the details in it were so disturbing—like Grimm Brothers–level disturbing. Especially (spoiler deleted).
RR: Thank you, and sorry.
Did you ever find yourself having to pull back on how dark it was? Or were you given total free rein?
RR: No, there was no pulling back. Julie (Strauss-Gabel, Riggs’ editor) has a strong stomach. I knew I didn’t want to get too graphic at times, but through the sort of gauzy light of a fairy tale you can get really dark.
TM: It’s a very elegant kind of grotesque, I think.
RR: If you don’t get too clinical, you can get really dark in a children’s story.
(The collection’s opening story) “The Splendid Cannibals” kind of sets the tone.
RR: It’s really about saving money and banking and wise investing. I had a paragraph in there about mortgages.
Was it really punny?
TM: It was a little anachronistic, but otherwise really on point.
When you guys met, you were both published writers. Had you read each other’s work first or did you become friends first?
TM: Friends first.
RR: Friends first. Yeah, we hadn’t read each other’s books when we met.
Were you deeply nervous to read the work of someone you were falling for?
TM: Yes, it was very nerve-wracking. I was like, “Man, I really hope I like this.”
RR: It was like, “Oh, thank god. She’s a good writer.”
TM: That was exactly how I felt. Actually, I have a favorite quote from his first book, which is, “Sometimes you just have to go through a door.” Am I messing that up? Anyway, I had it made into a floor mat because I thought it was so cool as you enter. I thought it was so powerful and simple, and I really, really loved it. Because I was a big fan of his books all of a sudden.

And how does living with and being married to a writer affect your practice? Are you different writers than you used to be?
TM: A little bit. I think we balance each other out. We have very different writing styles: I tend to be a lot more obsessive in my writing—I can really throw myself into a book for 18 hours at a time, whereas Ransom is so much more well-adjusted and takes breaks and makes breakfast, and has a little espresso, and pets the cat, and goes for a walk. And we really help balance each other out. Now I’ll stop for lunch, for example. And he’ll work a little bit more.
RR: I think I am more productive and she’s healthier, so we’ve improved each other’s styles.
Tahereh, you talked earlier about how the idea that you had (for Furthermore) demanded you make the switch to middle grade. What has been the most exciting or surprising difference in writing for kids rather than writing for teens?
TM: The book has just come out, so I haven’t had a lot of interaction with really young audiences yet. But I do think the one thing I’ve found most liberating about writing middle grade is that I feel like you can—how do I articulate this?—I feel like younger audiences are willing to suspend their belief more, so you can be wildly imaginative and write things that are just really incredible and they’ll come along for the ride. And you don’t always—it’s not like hard sci-fi. You don’t have to explain exactly how the oxygen works (in space). You can let it be, let it breathe.
Have you had any experience yet with young people reading your books? Did you have any nine-year-old beta readers? Is that a thing?
RR: Sometimes it is a thing, I’ve been told.
TM: I have not yet. I have had some feedback from younger readers who got ARCs. It was really fun because their reactions are so—
RR: They were like, “Can I give it more than five stars?” Really cute.
TM: Their reactions are so genuine. I think they will be just as honest in their praise as they are in their criticism. But when they love something they really love it, and that’s been so rewarding.
Ransom, you kind of hinted that you have another project in the works. Are you able to talk about that at all?
RR: I can’t talk about it…I’m wearing an anklet and it shocked me as I tried to speak.
So the answer’s no. You’re both pretty prolific. Do you have tricks to get unstuck when that occurs?
RR: I don’t consider myself very prolific, but I appreciate that. I feel like there’s so many writers who write more than me.
TM: I think you write a great deal.
RR: I’m always hyper aware of wasting time, like, “No, I shouldn’t be watching this episode of whatever. I should be writing.”
TM: The thing is, I think, that there are some writers who feel you have to write every single minute of every day, and if that works for them—you know, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. But I don’t work that way. For me, when the idea is there, when the motivation is there, when the moment is there, I write. And anything else that I’m doing in the interim is inspiration. Going to the museum, going to a movie, watching TV—it depends on what it is. Everything can impact you, whether you realize it or not. It’s all your subconscious working things out. You need input in order to create output, so it all goes in the machine.
RR: I start to feel a tug of nagging guilt if I haven’t written in a few days, but for me, I can’t do more than five or six writing hours a day. The motor burns out. So if I’ve done a chunk of work and it’s three o’clock, I don’t feel bad about doing whatever else for the rest of the day.
Do you have books you go back to that are foundational texts for your work or that jog something in your mind, creativity-wise?
RR: Yeah, totally. I will read Cormac McCarthy just to remember how to write in a simple, direct way. You know, don’t overly flower up the language, just tell the story and it can still be beautiful. And spare.
TM: That’s such an interesting question. I’m like, “Oh, do I?” I actually think I turn to poetry. But I don’t read a lot of English poetry. I do translate it, but I love Spanish and Farsi. So Rumi always blows my mind, Hafiz always blows my mind. That refills the tank, over and over again. Farsi is such a poetic language, and I feel like it has absolutely influenced my writing whether I feel it or not.
Did you grow up writing in both English and Farsi?
TM: No, I have the education of a fifth-grader in Farsi. But I find other languages to be really inspiring, and I love language, so I’m always looking for how to say something succinctly in a beautiful way, or how to describe emotion that is sometimes difficult to articulate.
Did you guys write as children?
RR: I did.
Do you remember the first thing you wrote or were proud of?
RR: The first story I ever wrote was called “The Popcorn World.”
TM: It’s a great book. It’s illustrated! He was five.
RR: It’s just like, two people took a rocket ship to the popcorn world.
But how does it work, with the oxygen?
RR: It was really basic.
TM: Don’t they die in the end? It was really melodramatic.
RR: I think so. It was grim.
It should be more modern. They Die at the End would be a good title if you were to release it now.
TM: But isn’t that the name of Adam Silvera’s third book? They Both Die at the End?
Oh, yes! And speaking of, what other books are you guys super excited about that are coming in YA, this year and next?
TM: Ooh, so many. We have so many friends publishing books this year. Marie Lu has The Midnight Star coming out soon. We’re lucky to be friends with some incredibly talented authors who are also incredible people. Kami Garcia’s got a new book coming out, which I loved, The Lovely Reckless. Leigh Bardugo’s Crooked Kingdom is coming out. Sabaa Tahir’s new book, A Torch Against the Night, just came out yesterday, which is so amazing! There are so many. So many great books.
It’s kind of a YA golden age. It’s a good age to be a writer or a blogger or a reader.
RR: The gold rush.
So tell me more about your juvenilia. I love this stuff. So you wrote about the popcorn world, even though you said you can’t draw.
RR: Well, it’s just a mess. It doesn’t look good at all.
TM: It’s popcorn. Lots of popcorn.
RR: It’s bound with staples. And every year in school, I would enter the young writer’s contest. And I won, year after year. I always won. And then I realized that anyone who entered won and got to go to this special conference, which took the wind out of my sails a little bit. I wrote a book called—my first winner—was called “The Two Friends.” It was about two Native American kids from warring tribes who met and were like, “We’re going to be friends anyway.”
TM: That’s a great story. Has a beginning, middle, and an end.
RR: Yep. There was probably more to it, but I can’t remember.
Tahereh, how about you? Were you a kid writer?
TM: I was not a writer growing up. I was an avid reader. I lived at the library; I spent my summers—not kidding—reading four books a day. Every day.
RR: That’s good training.
TM: That was my life. But I never thought I could write a book, ever. So I never even tried. Though apparently when I was in sixth grade I wrote a comic book—fully illustrated!—again, what is up with the illustrations? I don’t know what’s wrong with me—about a boy who turned everything he touched to chocolate.

Oh, my god, so you were already experimenting with the idea of touch?
TM: Yeah, clearly I was prepping for Shatter Me.
RR: Blessing, curse? Kind of a grey area.
It’s a grey area, even with chocolate.
TM: In the end it was a problem, because everyone he loved turned to chocolate.
That’s even darker than Shatter Me.
TM: It was really dark.
RR: It’s pretty dark.
TM: It was a pretty sad comic book in the end.
Well, I’d love to see these someday. I’m sure you guys get this all the time, but do you plan to cowrite a book at some point?
RR: It’s not like a plan, per se, but we bounce around ideas sometimes.
TM: Yeah, but right now we’re both fully committed to other contracts and projects, but one day—
RR: We’ve got lots of time.
TM: Hopefully.
RR: Yeah, hopefully. I don’t want to jinx it.
TM: Knock on some wood.
RR: Gets hit by a bus.

I think we’ve got time for one more question. Can you tell me about the experience of seeing the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children movie for the first time?
RR: It was very overwhelming. We saw it twice within maybe a month.
TM: Different cuts.
RR: And the first cut, we were in a little theater on the Fox back lot, basically just us, alone.
Oh, what a trip. So you guys got to see it together, alone? So you could cry or whatever you needed to do?
TM: Yeah.
RR: And I hardly remember anything about what I saw on the screen. I was just like, “Oh my god. I wrote that! It’s happening!” And we had spent a bunch of days on the set watching it get filmed, so it was doubly surreal to see stuff from the book, and stuff we saw happen in person. It was like, “Those are our friends, on a movie!” And it was beautiful. I was just so thrilled and relieved that it was good.
TM: But after we left—
RR: We were numb and tingly.
TM: After we left, we didn’t say a word to each other. And it’s a weird experience, because these cuts that you see don’t have credits—it just ends. It just abruptly ends. There’s no rolling credits, there’s no music.
RR: It’s just like—over. Lights on. Finished.
And you’re like, “I need 45 minutes in a sensory deprivation tank.”
TM: Closure, right.
RR: So we looked at each other sort of stunned and were like, “We need to get out of here.” So we went to the car and we drove to a diner and sat down and ordered coffee and only when the coffee had come were we like, “Oh, my god!”
TM: Oh, my god!
RR: And we could finally talk about it. And then we saw it a month later, a slightly different cut. And I could actually process what I was looking at and I was like, “Oh, it’s really good. This is so smart and fun.”
Ransom Riggs and Tahereh Mafi are also extremely smart and fun. Their wonderful books, Tales of the Peculiar and Furthermore, are available now!