Posts Tagged #authorinterview

Dragonborn: Twilight Child, Interview with Author Struan Murray

By on October 19, 2026   /   Author Interviews   /   Leave a comment

Book cover Dragonborn: Twilight Child featuring a bright green dragon with a small person astride

Dragonborn: the Twilight Child is the second book in the rapidly-expanding world introduced in Dragonborn. This fast-paced book throws readers headfirst into Alex’s story, as she struggles to contain her emotions and figure out why her overprotective mother is so over the top… but Alex never expected the answer to involve dragons! In book two, Alex and friends must dive deeper into the hidden stories of the past if they have any hope of building a future where humans and dragons can co-exist peacefully. This is an edge-of-your-seat read with gripping action and heart-pounding adventures!

One of my fifth graders wanted everyone to know that Dragonborn was a fantastic book with “a lot of things I was not expecting!” (They did not want to say more in case of spoilers.) They also burned through my advanced copy of The Twilight Child, reading almost as fast as a dragon flies!

Interview with Author Struan Murray

Katie: Struan, thank you so much for swinging by From the Mixed-Up Files to chat about Dragonborn: the Twilight Child, the highly-anticipated sequel to last year’s smash hit, Dragonborn. 

First question, if you were at a school visit with a roomful of upper elementary kids, what would be your quick elevator pitch for why they should read Alex’s story?

Struan: Dragonborn is about a girl who discovers that dragons are real, and then discovers that she is one. In The Twilight Child, Alex and her friends travel to a hidden world deep in Scotland where humans and dragons are trying to live alongside one another, even while an army of ancient demons attacks every night. So if you like dragons, monsters and mysteries then there’s definitely something in here for you!

Author photo of Struan Murray showing a red-headed white Scottish man in front of a fence and some trees

Katie: Alex is such a complicated character with quite the emotional journey. Does Alex have much in common with you as a kid? If not, where did you find inspiration for her personality and challenges?

Struan: There’s definitely some of me in Alex, though I think she’s much braver than I was at her age! Even so, she’s struggling with her fear and a lot of other big emotions too, which I think is something all young people can relate too. Alex’s emotions simply have much more fiery consequences…

Katie: Teachers often tell students to “Write what you know?” How have you been able to use “what you know” and your own life experiences to write a fantastical story populated by dragons?

Struan: I think “write what you know” is often more useful when it relates to emotions than to the literal events of a story. I have sadly never turned into a dragon, but I do know what it feels like to be frightened, angry, frustrated, lonely. Taking our own personal experience of those things and putting them on the page is what makes the fantastical parts of a story feel real.

My background in science probably sneaks in too. I spend an unreasonable amount of time wondering how my dragons actually work: how they fly, what happens when they transform, how they actually produce fire. Most of that never makes it onto the page, but I like feeling that somewhere underneath all the magic there is a set of rules!

Map of the fictional city of Dundarrak with a big wall

Katie: I love that! Kids might be surprised to learn that you are not only an author but also a professor (of biochemistry, no less!). Can you tell us a little about your path to publication? What led you to write for kids?

Struan: I’ve always loved both science and stories, so for a long time I was doing both without really expecting the writing to become a career, scribbling away in my notebooks while waiting for an experiment to finish. It was also useful to have a hobby like writing to cling to—an emotional life-raft of sorts to cling to whenever an experiment (inevitably) backfired. There were quite a few unsuccessful novels along the way, but eventually I submitted a manuscript to a writing competition on the advice of my partner, that led to me getting literary representation, that led to a publishing deal!

Katie: What advice would you give to fledgling MG authors?

Struan: Finish things! I spent years starting novels, getting twenty or thirty thousand words into them, deciding they weren’t good enough and beginning something new. You learn an enormous amount by actually reaching the end of a story, even if that story never gets published. I’d also try to remember the books you loved when you were the age you’re writing for. Children read for all sorts of reasons, but I think one of the most important is simply the pleasure of finding out what happens next. You can tackle difficult emotions and complicated ideas, but you still have to make them want to turn the page.

Katie: Great advice! On that note, what are some of your favorite middle grade books or series?

Struan: Northern Lights by Philip Pullman is probably the book that had the greatest effect on me when I was young. I loved the scale and strangeness of it, but particularly the sense that Pullman trusted young readers with enormous ideas. I also love Diana Wynne Jones, especially Howl’s Moving Castle, and I’m a huge fan of Philip Reeve’s books — his Mortal Engines series was a big influence on me as a young writer. More recently, I’ve loved books by writers such as Katya Balen and Ross Montgomery.

Front endpapers for Dragonborn: Twilight Child featuring a girl running through a backlit town

Katie: Readers hoping for a quick resolution to Alex’s story are going to be left at the edge of their seats yet again. Is there anything you can tell your readers about where the story is heading from here? Can we expect a trilogy … or more? Do you have any other upcoming projects you can share about?

Struan: I can confirm that there will be a third Dragonborn book! Without giving too much away, the world of dragons will be shaken up massively by the events of The Twilight Child, with many dragons now eager to join Drak Midna in his war against humanity, and an ingenious new foe rising to battle Alex and her friends. 

But beyond the third book, who knows? 

Actually, I know, as it happens, and I can tell you right now: there will be more to Alex’s story beyond book three!

Katie: Hooray! My 5th graders will be cheering as soon as I tell them!

Lightning Round with Struan Murray

Yellow graphic lightning bolt

Coffee, tea, or Medu?

Coffee in the morning, tea for the rest of the day. Medu only in emergencies.

What color dragon would you be?

Probably purple. Although knowing my luck I’d discover after transforming that I was beige.

Dream job when you were a kid?

Everything! Baker, doctor, actor, architect… and a palaeontologist, of course, which I suspect is what happens when a child like me discovers that dragons almost existed.

Superpower?

Stopping time. I have two small children and far too many books to write. An extra few hours while everyone else was frozen would solve an extraordinary number of problems.

Finally, where can readers find you if they want to reach out?

You can find me through my website: struanmurray.com, or on Instagram @struan_c_murray, where I share news about my books, events and occasional glimpses of what I’m working on.



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Interview with Ally Russell, author of MYSTERY JAMES RETURNS FROM THE GRAVE!

By on September 23, 2026   /   Author Interviews  

It was a thrill to interview Ally Russell, author of thrilling books, including IT CAME FROM THE TREES; MYSTERY JAMES DIGS HER OWN GRAVE; and now its follow-up, MYSTERY JAMES RETURNS FROM THE GRAVE.

Readers will love Mystery’s – and Ally’s – return to the chills of the Olde Ellis Town Cemetery and the mysteries contained within. Here, Ally discusses writing the second part of a duology, crafting sharp dialogue, and coming up with perfect names – and what thrills await!

Cover of

This is the second book in the Mystery James duology, after the tremendous success of Mystery James Digs Her Own Grave. Did you have this part of the story mapped out when you started working on the first book, or did this come later? What was the experience of writing this book vs the first?

I had a general synopsis of book two ready to go by the time I finished writing book one. The synopsis changed and became more detailed as I actually wrote the book. The experience was fun, because I was returning to a developed world with characters that I have fallen in love with; however, I have to acknowledge the challenge of trying to maintain a consistent tone and mood across two books. It was tough! I did my best to capture the spirit of book one, so that readers wouldn’t feel detached from Mystery and Ellis Town.

I love your dialogue in both the first book and now in …Returns from the Grave – it crackles off the page and defines your characters so wonderfully. Do you have any specific techniques for writing dialogue from character to character?

That’s so kind of you to say! I love writing dialogue. I don’t have any specific techniques other than reading the dialogue aloud. This is important because it helps me determine if the dialogue is too clunky, too adult, too much, or not enough. Dialogue should sound natural. Some dialogue sounds better when written on the page, but it doesn’t translate well when it leaps from the page to the screen or other mediums, so I’m always thinking about that when I write. Humans communicate with body language too, so sometimes dialogue isn’t necessary. 

You have a way with names, from the brilliant Mystery James, of course, to Coffin the harvestmen spider and “Hellish” Hazel, and beyond. How do you come up with such great names? Is there a character name out there you wish could be used in one of your books?

Would it surprise you to know that I struggle with names? Town, landmarks, characters, and book titles—naming things is one of the most difficult parts of my writing process. Sometimes, I drop in placeholders so that I can focus on getting the story down on the page, and then I go back and add names. I keep a notebook of names that I like, and I cross them off whenever I use them in a project. One time I forgot to do this, and I had a minor side character with the same name in two completely different books. Oops. I guess I really liked that name.

I wanted Mystery to have an unconventional name, so I tried to think about what Tía Lucy might call her. I imagined Tía Lucy playing peek-a-boo and other games with Mystery and saying something like, “Where did you come from? It’s a mystery!” I worried that her name was too odd, but once she had a name, her personality leapt off the page, so I stuck with it. 

I do have a character name that I absolutely adore, but I don’t want to share it publicly. It begins with “C,” and the name is also used by a villain in a spooky children’s movie.

In your acknowledgments, you write that it was vital for you to “….conclude this duology in a way that would leave [readers] happy and clutching the book to [their] chest.” What were some of the books that left you doing the same? Were there any second-books in a series that you looked to as you told this part of Mystery’s story?

Alexandra Bracken’s Prosper Redding duology comes to mind. I flew through The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding and couldn’t wait for The Last Life of Prince Alastor to be released. I remember clutching the book to my chest as I teared up while reading about the malefactor and Prosper Redding. I’m not sure that I looked to any particular sequel for guidance as I wrote Mystery 2. I just tried to tell a complete story that tied things up in a way that lets Mystery live on in the minds of readers.  

Speaking of endings, yours comes together in such a fulfilling way, trying together the storyline and especially highlighting Mystery’s relationships with Garrett, Eliza, and Tia Lucy. What were the any challenges pulling those threads together, and how did you resolve them?

I think the challenge came in trying to show readers, especially young readers, that most relationships change over time—for better or worse. I’m 39 years old, and my relationships with friends and family are constantly changing and evolving. This is a normal part of growing up (and we never really stop growing up). I wanted to show that even though the dynamics of Mystery and Garrett’s friendship change, they are true companions who will always fight for each other. 

You write that, although these characters will always live beyond the pages of the books, this is the end of Mystery’s journey. What can we look forward to reading from you next (after going back to binge your incredible, frightful debut, It Came from the Trees)?

I’m trying my hand at YA horror (yikes!), but I’m not sure the tone is right. The story feels like it wants to be upper middle grade/young YA. I’m going to keep writing and follow the story wherever it needs to go. I’m also thinking of another middle-grade book (a heist book), but I tend to think about stories for years before I actually write them, so I’m not sure when that will make it on to the page. I have a few other projects that I’m not allowed to talk about yet, but keep your fingers crossed that they get announced soon so that I can shout about them. 

 

Author photo of Ally Russell

Ally Russell is the USA TODAY bestselling author of It Came from the Trees and the Mystery James series. She grew up on a steady diet of Halloween parties, horror films, Unsolved Mysteries, and Goosebumps books. She has always loved scary stories, and got her MFA from Simmons University and, eventually, a job working in children’s publishing. She hails from Pittsburgh—ground zero for the zombie apocalypse. Ally lives with her husband and her two black cats, Nox and Fury. She’s afraid of the woods, the dark, and heights.

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Author Interview with Maire Roche

By on August 17, 2026   /   Author Interviews, New Releases  

Author Interview with Maire Roche

Today’s author interview is with Middle Grade author Maire Roche. If you like monsters and retellings, then then buckle up for a fun read! So, without further ado….

KATE: Our Mixed-Up-Files readers would love the inside scoop on your latest book, Little Monsters! Can you tell us a bit about its premise?

MAIRE: Thank you, and I’d love to chat all things Little Monsters! Little Monsters is a monstrous, magical, and modern remix of Little Women, all for a middle grade audience. In this retelling, each of the March sisters is hiding a monstrous power from their foster mom and the world in general. Little Monsters is Meg’s story, as she navigates hiding the sharp claws and twisty teeth that appear when she gets anxious or upset, tries to get everyone Halloween costumes, and develops a crush on the boy next door. Unfortunately for Meg, the closer it gets to Halloween in Salem, the stronger her monstrous magic gets—and she keeps waking up in the woods with no memory of how she got there. She has to learn to rely on her friends and family, accept her magic (and her anxiety), and maybe uncover some spooky secrets about the community she’s living in.

KATE: When I saw the cover of your book and that your story is a retelling of the classic Little Women, I was hooked. Secrets? Monsters? I’m in! As for yourself, what was it about Little Women that pulled you into writing a spooky version of it?

MAIRE: I loved Little Women growing up, but as a kid, I was always drawn to books that had magic and danger. When I was thinking about my childhood reads, I thought about what I would do differently, or what I would add—and right away, adding magic to the March sister’s world made total sense.

KATE: While the classic follows the second sister, Jo, yours follows the eldest sister, Meg. As an older sister, Meg feels a duty to take care of the younger ones. I’m curious what came first for you – the premise (and that’s how you knew to write about Meg) or if you always wanted to give Meg a chance to shine and thus found a story that would fit her?

MAIRE:  I’ve always loved Meg! As a fellow eldest daughter, I always sympathized with Meg’s journey as I read the books. I wanted to translate that to a modern setting, where I wondered what kind of worries an eldest-daughter-Meg would have in today’s world. Of course, in Little Monsters, this version of Meg March isn’t worrying about getting an advantageous marriage that will save her sisters from poverty—but in what way would things like poverty and caring for her sisters still be hers to worry about? I knew I wanted to explore that in my retelling!

KATE: Meg’s friend, John Brooke (aka Brooks) knows a lot about seam cities. I am super intrigued by the idea of these. Can you give readers here a bit of a taste for what a seam city is and why you chose to set Little Monsters in Salem vs one of the other cities?

MAIRE: A seam city is one that sits on the “seam” between worlds. In communities like these, the veil is thin, and the monstrous, mythical, and magical walk side by side with humans. Humans who aren’t part of these magical communities, though, only have vague memories of the monstrous things they see after they leave or move away—or they find other ways to explain away what they saw. But in a seam city,
anything can happen—especially close to Halloween! As far as why I chose Salem, I wanted to choose a city in Massachusetts, since Louisa May Alcott (the author of the original) was from Concord. Salem, as the resident spook city of Massachusetts, seemed like the perfect fit!

KATE: Your story, an absolute fun fantasy to read, also touches on some realistic topics such as the foster care system, first crushes, teenage jobs and responsibilities, and social rumors, to name a few. How were you able to balance these to create such an exciting tale?

MAIRE: First of all, thank you! I’m glad that came through. It was so important to me to write about things kids are really facing. I felt like the other stakes of the story (the monstrous part) wouldn’t mean nearly as much without compelling internal stakes. Meg’s biggest worry isn’t that she’s a monstrous, but that she’s unsure what her family will look like, and who will stay in her life.

KATE: When writing a retelling, how much flexibility is there in creating something new vs using what’s familiar? For example, in Little Monsters we meet familiar characters from the classic such as the four March sisters, yet you’ve definitely added a spin by making them each their own form of monster. If readers wanted to write their own retellings of beloved stories, what tips or advice do you have for them?

MAIRE: I would say don’t worry too much about staying close to the source text! There are so many retellings of our favorite stories (Little Women included) that I think it’s more important to honor the source text where we can, but take liberties wherever and whenever. The point of the retelling is to have fun! You won’t please everyone, and that’s okay—one of the many other retelling will be for them instead. And
you will find some readers that absolutely fall head over heels, which makes it really worth it all.

KATE: It’s often fun to read about the baddies of a book, and in your story we aren’t always sure who the baddie is! How fun was it for you to write an antagonist that keeps the readers guessing?

MAIRE: It was SO much fun. No spoilers, but the antagonist of this story might be my favorite one I’ve written…ever. I find that young readers especially love an interesting villain, and they are my favorite people to write for. They have such interesting questions, and they always seem to take the time to understand all the characters (even the villains). I can’t wait for them to discover this one!

KATE: Without revealing spoilers, can you describe your writing process and, can you give us an example of something you cut, changed, or reworked from draft to publication?

MAIRE: I actually wrote this draft in four days! I wanted to see if I could write something that quickly. Very little changed between that draft and the version we submitted to publishers. After we sold the book, though, I did some reworking of the world building to make sure nothing was too complicated. For instance, I had a whole sequence of scenes in which I’d gotten the phase of the moon wrong. Since the
story relates so much to the full moon on Halloween, I had to rework a lot of that!

KATE: I love that the four sisters have different monster abilities. If I got to transform into one of them, I’d be Beth for sure, since I’d want wings! In Little Monsters we get to witness Meg dealing with what it means for her to be a monster. I’m curious if fans will get to see future books where the other sisters get to showcase their monster sides?

MAIRE: This one I can only say hopefully yes! I have a tentative idea for each sister, each in a different seam city
community, and… we’ll see.

KATE: Thank you for taking the time to share the inside scoop on Little Monsters. Is there something beyond Salem you can hint at? Perhaps a new project in the works?

MAIRE: I am in the process of deciding on my next thing in middle grade right now, so there isn’t much I can say about that genre. However, I do write in a lot of spaces, and I have a really fun follow-up to my cozy romantasy (for grownups) as well as something horror-adjacent I can’t wait to talk about! Stay tuned for some more monstrous middle grade from me, though—I’m definitely eager to stay in this space.

KATE: Where can readers best find you if they want to reach out?

MAIRE: I am online at maryeroach.com or on Instagram @maryeroachauthor. I love to hear from readers, so please reach out, or tag me in a picture of Little Monsters!

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