10 Things I Learned from Interviewing the Authors of The Caster Chronicles for Las Comadres

Last night, I had the honor of interviewing Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the authors of Beautiful Creatures and Beautiful Darkness (Book 1 & 2 in the Caster Chronicles) during the live Las Comadres & Friends National Latino Book Club Teleconference I told you about here. It was recorded and will be available online soon but in the meantime I wanted to share with you the things I learned:

  1. Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, both revere Fahrenheit 451, which is also one of my favorites. 
  2. They never intended for their story to be published, never mind having a movie adaptation of it. 
  3. The real message they want to empower their young readers with is to claim yourself, to stand in your own power – it’s okay to be different. 
  4. Their books have now been published in over 38 countries.
  5. They both own ereaders. Although Margaret collects physical books.
  6. One of Kami’s ancestors was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War.
  7. Writing from a narrative from a male’s POV wasn’t very challenging for them since they both had male siblings and were “tomboyish” growing up, although Kami claims they still haven’t quite grown up yet. 
  8.  Margaret cried when she first held a copy of Beautiful Creatures and Kami thought they were being punked when they were told about the movie rights being sold.
  9. The Caster Chronicles will total four books, the third, Beautiful Chaos comes out in October but is already available for pre-order.
  10. For those of you who can’t wait till then, a short story prequel to “Beautiful Chaos,” titled “Dream Dark: A Beautiful Creatures Story,” will be available as an e-book exclusive download on August 2! It focuses more on the story of Link, who is Ethan Wate’s best friend in the Chronicles.
I hope you will have a chance to listen to full interview when it’s up!
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