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Working: How Stuart Gibbs Writes Mysteries for Kids

Slate Culture Feed

Slate Podcasts

Music, Tv & Film, Arts

4.22K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2021

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, host Rumaan Alam talks to author Stuart Gibbs, who writes mystery novels for young readers. Stuart’s work includes the FunJungle series and other collections like the Spy School and Charlie Thorne books. In the interview, Stuart discusses his career beginnings and the literary agent who encouraged him to try writing for a younger audience. He also talks about his writing process, getting pointers from his own kids, and how he’s able to produce multiple titles per year.  After the interview, Rumaan and co-host June Thomas talk about Stuart’s unique relationship with his readers.  In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Rumaan’s son shares what he loves about Stuart’s books.  Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

heard about Magpie, the vegan pie truck that needed a bit of help from GoDaddy.

0:03.3

One day the owners alike, this business hasn't reached this potential

0:07.1

and the other one goes, we need a bigger piece of the pie and then it hits her.

0:11.1

We need GoDaddy. Look, we can get a domain name and create an online store

0:14.8

so we can sell to more customers.

0:16.8

Now they've gone from serving a couple of pies to a vlogging nationwide

0:20.9

and now everyone's like, vegan pies are the new thing around here.

0:25.0

Wait, no me! Take the next step on your business journey with GoDaddy.

0:35.6

Writing middle grade, writing for kids who are in third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade,

0:40.4

that's just like the sweet spot for school visits.

0:43.4

You do occasionally talk to somebody who writes young adults who's moved in the middle grade

0:48.1

so they've been going to high schools and talking to high school students and then they come talk to

0:52.1

kids in fourth and fifth grade and they're like, oh my god, I'm never going to go talk to

0:55.2

teenagers again in my life. This is so much better.

1:00.4

Welcome back to Working. I'm your host, June Thomas.

1:03.6

And I'm your other host, Romano Lomb.

1:05.8

Romano. The voice we just heard belongs to Stuart Gibbs, who is a writer of middle grade books,

1:12.3

a term I need you to educate me on very soon. But before we get to that,

1:17.3

I noticed from your excellent Twitter feed that you seem to be on a bit of a spring cleaning

1:23.2

jag right now, does that fever extend to your creative life?

1:28.2

I think it's mostly in so far as it's a form of denial or distraction from that creative life.

1:33.9

I do have a couple of pretty big projects that I meant to be working on.

...

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