Spotlight on Stuart Gibbs

Stuart Gibbs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlie Thorne series, FunJungle series, Moon Base Alpha series, Once Upon a Tim series, and Spy School series. He has written screenplays, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, been a newspaper columnist, and researched capybaras (the world’s largest rodents). Stuart lives with his family in Los Angeles. 

Q: Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation is the start to your fourth series at Simon & Schuster. What most excites you about beginning a new series? What are you looking forward to with this one?

A new series gives you the chance to try a new style of storytelling. When I was a kid, MG and YA didn’t really exist, and so I read a lot of my parent’s books. I always liked the ones full of intrigue and action that hopped from one exotic location to the next. So I thought it would be fun to try and write something like that for young readers. Plus, it was really fun to create the character of Charlie Thorne, who is very different from those that I have written before. I also liked writing in third person and getting to shift perspectives. I’m hoping that my readers like it too, because I have many ideas for future books.

Q: How might the CIA describe Charlie? How might Charlie describe herself?

The CIA does describe Charlie in the book. Like this: ‘Rebellious. Headstrong. Conceited. Disrespectful of authority.” Charlie would probably say “Smart. Capable. Funny. Adventurous. And PS, authority often deserves to be disrespected.”

Q: Charlie must work to break Einstein’s seemingly unbreakable code. Did you like cracking codes as a kid? Can you give us a peek at your process for devising the puzzles in the book?

I did like breaking codes. I loved Games Magazine, and I learned a lot of great codes from that. I also tried my hand at creating them. The code used by Einstein in the book is actually one I created in high school while I was bored in class. (So yes, I had the idea for it for several decades before I figured out a cool way to use it.)

Q: Charlie’s mission takes her around the globe. Have you ever visited these locations? How do they impact the story?

I have visited just about every location that Charlie Thorne takes place. (I have not been to Greenland, but I have flown over it.) There is no better way to get ideas than to visit a place. Here’s a fun story: Part of my book takes place in Jerusalem, which I had originally plotted out because I had visited it quite a long time ago. But shortly before I started writing, I randomly mentioned to an author friend that I was going to write something set in Israel. A minute later, she forwarded me an email from an organization called PJ Library, which was taking twenty authors on an all-expense paid trip to Israel the next March. Even crazier, the dates coincided exactly with the dates that my in-laws wanted to take my children on a spring break trip. So I applied and got selected and went to Israel for free. I spent hours wandering around Jerusalem, working out action sequences, which all now appear in the book. I also worked out many other sequences in the book (notably the final action set piece) by visiting the locations where I wanted them to take place.