Interview: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl!

Favorites:
Favorite fictional couple?
Kami: Tristan & Isolde
Margie: Jace & Clary

Favorite color?
Kami: Black
Margie: Why does she get to go first? She says all my answers. *sulks*

Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
Kami: Read & take pictures of my kids.
Margie: Read. Travel. Write. Hang out with my girls.

Favorite band/music artist?

Kami: Favorite Band – Guns & Roses, The White Stripes / Artist – Robert Rauschenberg, Kara Walker

Margie: Regina Spektor, Lily Allen, Ingrid Michaelson, Death Cab for Cutie, Vampire Weekend, the soundtracks to Glee & Spring Awakening.

Favorite book(s)?

Kami: To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, I Capture the Castle, The Giver & The Golden Compass.

Margie: TKAM, A Wrinkle in Time, The Dark is Rising, The Chronicles of Chrestomancii, Sunshine, Graceling and Tender is the Night.

Favorite unusual animal?
Kami: Tapir or Marmoset
Margie: My unusually bad beagles, Kirby and Zelda.

Favorite drink?
Kami: Seriously – you know this. Diet Coke.
Margie: *raises can*


Questions about writing:

Why did you decide to write from a boy’s POV?

Kami: We both have brothers, and we wanted readers to experience BC from a boy’s perspective. The magic, the danger, the choices Ethan and Lena face. So few girls get a window into the mind of a guy.

Margie: We also wanted to write about a powerful, mysterious, magical girl, and unravel that secret along with Ethan. And it was interesting to fall for the guy actually telling the story. Ethan is a sweetheart!

After the Beautiful Creatures books, do you think you will write together? Or write books by yourself?

Kami: I hope we’ll do both. We’re world-builders, so we’ll create another universe to work on together. But some day it would also be fun to write some smaller things & work as critique partners, at the same time.

Margie: Which was of course how this all began; we were fans of each other’s writing long before we started collaborating on BC. But we work together so well, I’m sure you’ll see more of us as a team…

How long did it take you to write Beautiful Creatures?

Kami: Twelve weeks.

Margie: It was like a fever dream. It all came rushing out and just sort of took over our lives. It’s still sort of like that. J

What do you do when you get writer’s block?

Kami: This sounds annoying, but we don’t get writer’s block. We LOVE to draft.

Margie: We get revision block!

What made you decide to write about a Southern town?

Kami: Both of our families come from small town, mine from the South and Margie’s from the West. The South has a certain charm and magic about it that you don’t find anywhere else.

Margie: The South is a place where, to us, magic still happens. And pie. And family and community—all of which we wanted for BC.

Questions about the authors:
Why Milk Duds & Popcorn?
Kami: We write about what we like to eat.

Margie: Our friend Kerri introduced us to the combo. You should try it. We’re addicts now.

If you could choose a Caster power what would it be?

Kami: I would be a Cataclyst or a Sybil. I think it would be crazy to be able to control the elements or read people’s faces.

Margie: I would be a Palimpsest. I would love to be able to walk into some old Southern house and see everything that ever had or would happen there.

What are 3 things that most people don’t know about you?

Kami: I love disaster movies and if The Day After Tomorrow is on cable, I literally can’t turn it off. I’m incredibly superstitious.

Margie: I was so shy I didn’t speak to anyone outside of my family until third grade. I can still recite the poem from the front of the Dark is Rising books. I can live entirely on cheese.

Thanks so much Kami & Margie!
(Author Photo Credit goes to Alex Hoerner)