Spotlight on James Ponti

James Ponti is the New York Times bestselling author of three middle grade book series: the all-new City Spies, about an unlikely squad of five kids from around the world who form an elite MI6 Spy Team; the Edgar Award–winning Framed! series, about a pair of tweens who solve mysteries in Washington, DC; and the Dead City trilogy, about a secret society that polices the undead living beneath Manhattan. His books have appeared on more than fifteen different state award lists, and he is the founder of a writers group known as the Renegades of Middle Grade. James is also an Emmy–nominated television writer and producer who has worked for many networks including Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, PBS, History, and Spike TV, as well as NBC Sports. He lives with his family in Orlando, Florida.

Q: City Spies brings together five kids from around the world for missions with MI6 under the tutelage of Mother, a British spy. Which of the group most surprised you? Who are you most excited to see develop throughout the series?

The answer to both questions is Kat. She constantly surprises me, which is probably why she’s so much fun to write. She’s neurodivergent, but rather than trying to change who she is in order to “fit in,” she embraces her worldview for what it is—her greatest strength. (In this way, she’s very much modeled after my son, who has the same approach to life.) Kat sees every situation as if it’s a combination of overlapping, interconnected math problems and she revels in what she thinks of as “the elegance of numbers.”

This means that when I write her, I have to look at the world through the same lens. I have to figure out the “math” of everything, which for someone whose life is built with words, is where the surprises really kick in. It’s fun, because my struggle is her struggle in reverse. She’s looking for words and I’m looking for numbers. Then I have to find the words that express the numbers she sees. For example, in one scene, she has to explain how she’s able to pick a single person out of more than a thousand coming through an airport. In another, she connects three seemingly unrelated break-ins by decoding the office equipment inventory codes visible on stickers in crime scene photos. Each time I finish a Kat scene, I feel a little mentally exhausted.

As far as watching her character develop, I think it’s exciting because, while her unique quirks and traits can make social situations daunting, they also make the relationships she builds that much more profound. I also love how that perspective gives her a laser sharp wit and sense of humor. Her filter is different and that’s often hilarious.

Q: What was one of the most memorable scenes to write?

I love it when a scene starts off headed in one direction only to wind up somewhere completely unexpected (and hopefully more interesting). That was the case with my favorite chapter in City Spies. It’s a flashback to three years earlier when Mother first meets Sydney. It twists and turns in a number of ways. First of all, the Sydney of three years ago seems very different than the present-day version we’ve already met. We find out the take-charge, undisputed leader of the team was once the rebellious purple-mohawked scourge of her boarding school. She’s a persistent thorn in the side of her principal, highlighted by her most recent act of defiance, which involves an explosive and the statue of the school’s founder.

The explosion occurs while Mother’s on campus for an unrelated matter and posing as a police officer. Because he can’t blow his cover, he becomes inextricably caught up in the situation. And, although he’s desperate to escape, he quickly realizes he’s much more aligned with Sydney than the principal. By the end of the chapter, he’s determined that she’ll join the team, and the reader is left with a better understanding of both of them.

Q: What do you think is so appealing about spying, both for Mother’s team and for readers who gravitate toward these types of stories?

I think all authors are spies. We observe people, study their actions, try to find little details that hint at bigger stories, and arrange it all into a single narrative. That’s just what James Bond does, only we’re lucky because we don’t have supervillains shooting lasers at us. (Although, sometimes reader reviews can make it feel like we do.) And, I think at the most basic level the appeal of spying is that it’s about actively trying to figure things out.

For the kids in the book, however, spying has a much deeper appeal. It is baked into their DNA. Each of them comes from a background in which they were continually let down by adults. They’ve been overlooked by society and forced to move around the shadows of life relying on their wits and resilience. These are the same skills that make for excellent spies. But mostly, they are drawn to the fact that in doing this they become part of something none of them have ever had—a family.

From a reader’s perspective, spy novels are appealing because they are incredibly interactive. You don’t just read a spy novel, you participate. You see the clues, sort through the red herrings, and try to make sense of the motivations of others. If you’re trying to solve it alongside the characters, then you become a character, too.

Q: How does your background as a television scriptwriter inform your writing as an author?

It’s often hard for me to believe it when someone refers to me as an author, because it’s so far removed from the relationship I had with books when I was growing up. I HATED reading as a kid. I was so terribly slow at it and books were a constant source of frustration. However, I always loved stories and knew that I wanted to be a writer from an early age. I decided on that career path in fifth grade and never changed my mind. Because I was such a reluctant reader, I set off on a course to write scripts. I majored in screenwriting in college and spent the first part of my career writing for Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and PBS.

I loved it, especially the collaborative aspect of working closely with other creative people. But in adulthood, I finally fell in love with reading and started to wonder what it would be like to write novels. As it happened, one of my closest friends in television writing made an incredibly successful leap into a career as a novelist. (I won’t name drop, but you may be familiar with a character of hers named Katniss.)

Because I don’t have an English degree or a literary background, I think I probably approach books differently than many writers. My tendency is to write in first person, because it’s most similar to the dialogue writing I did in scripts. (City Spies is the first series I’ve done in third person and it created many crisis moments in which my wife had to come into the office and reassure me that it was going to work out.) I also scout locations for books just like I scout them for TV shows. Wherever possible, I visit the locations in my books and try to walk around to see what parts make for a good setting. For example, I spent time at the Edinburgh train station literally walking where my fictional characters walked so that I could figure out the best way to build the scene. Mostly, however, I think my TV background gives my writing a cinematic feel. It plays out like a movie when I write it and I hope it evokes those same feelings among readers.