Interview: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

I'm thrilled to welcome authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl to my blog. They stopped by to talk about their current novel, Beautiful Creatures, which is in stores now.

Please welcome these talented ladies!

FBR: How did you decide on writing a book together? What was the process like?
M: We were already so many things to each other: friends, critique partners, therapists…becoming writing partners just seemed like the logical next step.
When we stumbled across a story we wanted to write together, in a place we wanted to write it, everything sort of fell into place.
K: Writing together was surprisingly easy. We have very similar writing voices, and, more importantly, we had the same vision for the story and the characters. Neither of us has any ego, so that helps. We both have the power of veto.

FBR: Writers will often describe a reading experience that made them want to put the book down and go start writing immediately. What authors have inspired you in that way?
M: Harper Lee. Susan Cooper. Diana Wynne Jones. Kristin Cashore. Robin McKinley.
K: Southern Writers: Harper Lee, Flannery O’Connor, Anne Rice. YA Authors: S.E. Hinton, Clive Barker, Holly Black, Phillip Pullman, Cassandra Clare.

FBR: What comes to mind when you hear the words "the perfect story"?
M: To Kill A Mockingbird.
K: To Kill a Mockingbird for sure, Fahrenheit 451 & Lord of the Flies.

FBR: What’s the best compliment you’ve received about your book?
M: When it made my sixteen-year-old cry. When Amazon named it the top 5 book of 2009. When Sarah Burnes said she’d sell it. When Jen Hunt said she’d buy it.
K: Margie covered some of the big ones. Making the Indie Next List for Fall/Winter 09 was huge. But it always hits home for me when readers tell me BC made them cry, or they are reading it for the second time.

FBR: Tell us something that we might be surprised to learn about you.
M: I’m scared of everything and Kami is scared of nothing.
K: I wish. My fears are just more insane: earthquakes, snakes, flying, horror movies. So basically, my worst fear would be – snakes on a plane, while the in-flight movie, the Exorcist, is playing in the background, and an earthquake hits as we land.

FBR: What other projects are you currently working on? What can we expect in the future?
M: We just wrapped the sequel to Beautiful Creatures and will be fussing with that for the next few months, while we head out to our BC Southern Tour in January. Stay tuned for details, if you live in the South!
K: We’re always thinking about the world of Beautiful Creatures. At this point, the characters have their own stories to tell, and they are hard to ignore!

You can keep up with Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl at http://www.beautifulcreaturesthebook.com/.

Visit Little, Brown’s Beautiful Creatures website at http://www.somelovesarecursed.com/.

Thanks Kami and Margaret!