The married authors of ‘Furthermore’ and ‘Tales of the Peculiar’ invite us to their workshop.
Literature is full of famous couples, many of them as tragic and dysfunctional as they are romantic.
(Life isnt all sunshine.)
Credit: COREY NICKOLS for EW
I tend to be a very obsessive writer, Mafi says.
I write in big bursts and for long stretches of time.
So I can work from morning until night.
I just get really immersed into the story and I can work for two weeks straight.
Then I just collapse.
Sometimes Ill just bring her a balanced meal and shell be like Whats that?
Ransoms great for reminding me to emerge, his wife says.
Shes like an Italian race car.
Whereas I wake up in the morning, make my coffee, write for an hour.
Maybe I need to take a walk, make some more coffee…
He has a very healthy writing style, she says, waving him off.
… Go to lunch with somebody, he continues.
We dont have a dog.
But if I had a dog Id probably walk the dog.
Its more of a Southern-gentleman approach.
When Im on deadline and the pressure is on I will definitely crank it up.
When those are on its shields up and Do Not Disturb.
We can work next to each other without distracting one another too much, Riggs says.
Or it being weird or whatever.
The weirdness, they save for the page.
When did the whimsical world first begin to evolve?
The answer to this question is easy and cheesy, Mafi says.
I wrote that book after I fell in love with Ransom.
Despite her lead characters name, people shouldnt think its a takeoff on Lewis Carrolls classic-lit heroine.
Its been problematic because a lot of people think its anAlice in Wonderlandretelling, Mafi says.
I just found his work really inspiring.
The Secret Garden.Anne of Green Gables.The Chronicles of Narnia.The Prince and the Pauper.
Everything by Roald Dahl.
I mean those were the books that I loved growing up, Mafi says.
I didnt realize I was channeling that love of those childhood stories consciously.
All of these reflections that I have or all of my observations about this book all happened retroactively.
As so often happens, Riggs interjects.
People ask what are the themes that you wanted to write about?
Im like ask me in three years.
Sometimes something is happening inside of you and you just have to tell that story, Mafi adds.
You dont really realize why or where it came from until youve had time to process everything.
It came into being while I was writing the series.
He realizes that its been encoded.
Finally I could be free to explore any perspective, any country, any time.
It was a lot of fun.
It looks like a found object.
The guy who did the woodcuts is really brilliant, Riggs says.
Andrew carves them all by hand and he has a press from 1850 that he uses to make them.
To say he was my first choice for illustrator is underselling it.
Somehow we got Andrew and I was like, Thats perfect.
With the new book coming out and the movie happening, its really hard to work on much.
Im sort of cooking up ideas about what would happen next, he says.
When I have a free moment typing ideas into a blank document but nothing yet.
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For Mafi, a companion novel toFurthermoreis in the works for next year.
Its such a cool concept.
Mafi bats her eyes at him.
Give him the pitch.
Its one sentence, her husband says.
Its very dark, very magical, and kind of grotesque and pretty all at once.
I had a lot of fun writing it.
It doesnt take place in the same magical world asFurthermorebut its a neighboring magical land.
Furthermoreis like the spring.
This is the winter, Riggs says.
But as fall sweeps over our real world, the two will be spending their days outrunning it.
Another advantage to having their latest stories debut simultaneously?
Theyre hitting that road together.
