Author Event: Ransom Riggs

Last week, my local independent book store, Rainy Day Books, brought in Ransom Riggs, author of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children to speak. He’s on tour promoting the second book in the Miss Peregrine series, Hollow City. His talk was a Q&A session with the audience. The first lady to ask a question had already read Hollow City and basically said that Hollow City wasn’t as good as the first book and seemed forced. Her “question” was if this book was harder for him to write and was that why it wasn’t as good? RUDE!! He answered very graciously that this new book did take him about twice as long to write as the first book. He did not come down from the stage and punch her in the throat.

Which brings me to my next point. He is CUTE! The photo on his books’ jackets does not do him justice. And I like his preppy fashion sense too:

Some highlights of his talk:

  • · He attended Kenyon College and while there was in a family friendly sketch comedy group with John Green (author of The Fault in our Stars)
  • · After that, he went to film school at USC ; he had a few meetings about screenplays he’d written but nothing ever came of them
  • · His work writing at mentalfloss.com got him a job at Quirk Books. His first book for them was a non-fiction book called The Sherlock Holmes Handbook
  • · He has collected old photographs for a long time and the head of Quirk Books suggested he write a novel using them
  • · His photos are organized by subject and sometimes he looks through his files for the perfect photo to use in his story and other times he has a photo he wants to use and finds a way to incorporate it. He said the process is one of push and pull
  • · He didn’t know that Miss Peregrine was a young adult novel – Barnes and Noble shelved it in that section and that was that
  • · He makes short films and puts them up on youtube

I am beyond bummed that I didn’t have the friend who accompanied me take a photo with me standing next to him, with both of us looking at the camera. This is me telling him that Rosemary’s Baby is going to be a mini-series. (He mentioned that he liked the book in his talk.) He told me that he only recently read it for the first time. I told him it is one of my favorite books and that Ira Levin is one of my favorite authors. I suggested that he read A Kiss Before Dying by Levin if he hasn’t already. At this point, he was probably thinking, “I’m a professional writer. I don’t need a random woman from the audience recommending books to me.” But he was so nice and gracious, even as the Rainy Day Books lady was dragging, I mean escorting, me off the stage. Which is why I didn’t get a decent picture with him – too much fangirl rambling. Ugh. Anyway, I can’t wait to read my autographed copy of Hollow City!

January 29th, 2014 in Books