Margaret Stohl: Writer, Caster, Video Game Worder

I hate to say it but I am sure that until now, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of twi-hard fans out there, and at this moment they’re shouting  “But the last movie’s done! We want more!” Well, last February 14, movie critics have announced that another twilight-junkie carrier will be shown on screen. At first, some novel/movie critics like me thought that it would just be another rip-off. To the dismay of some of my anti-YA-romance friends, my thoughts changed and I was able to like the movie. Not to mention the book! Why? Because it’s different. It’s its own story of witches and secrets. Think Vampire Diaries clashed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a little sprinkle of Twilight romance. It’s a compelling and stylish new look at darkness. The title of the movie/novel is Beautiful Creatures. And who made it all possible? Well, there are two authors who begun the stir, and one of them is none other than our Author of the Week, Margaret Stohl.

Stohl had her roots in England, where she was born. She’s residing in Los Angeles today, though, Santa Monica to be exact, with her husband, who’s also a writer, two epee fencing children and–according to her–  two bad beagles. With a Knox Prize for English Literature, she graduated from Amherst College, while she earned her master’s degree in English at Stanford University. She completed her coursework, though, in Yale, with a doctorate in American Studies. One of her first careers in the world of literature was being a teaching assistant in Romantic Poetry, which she taught in Stanford and in Yale. Due to her marvelous work as a English laureate, Stohl have been give the honor of studying Creative Writing under the renowned Scottish poet, George MacBeth, in he University of East Anglia.

Before she reached the fame of writing novels for young audiences, she first worked with Spiderman and Jack Sparrow in the video game industry. She had been employed in several video game companies like Activision, Westwood Studios, Electronic Arts and has been a cofounder of “7 Studios.”. Her works include the video games Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Dune 2000, The Pirates of the carribean: The Legend of Jack SParrow, Defender, TheSopranos, Slave Zero, Apocalypse, Spycraft, Zork Nemesis, Zork Grand Inquisitor, two Command and Conquer games and many more.

What she’s more known for, though, is co-writing the multi-awarded young adult series, The Caster Chronicles, which starts with the most well-known chapter of the bunch, Beautiful Creatures. The series was co-written by a close friend of hers, Kami Garcia. The series deals with the  forbidden romance of a regular guy, and a caster, a local term for witch, and the influence of the many townspeople around them, set in the fictional small town of Gatlin, South Carolina in the Southern United States. The series had won many awards, an ALA William C. Morris YA Debut Award in 2010, as well as a SCIBA award, a NYPL Book for the Teen Age, and a YALSA Teen Top Ten Pick. Beautiful Creatures was named the #1 Teen Pick from Amazon in 2009, and the #5 Editors Pick, Overall. Look at those shinies! And of course with all those limelight, the film industry simply needed to purchase the novels’ movie rights, and so Beautiful Creatures, the movie, was born.

Just this year, Stohl just launched to the public a new solo work of hers entitled Icon, which she plans to be the premiere chapter of the Icon series.

That’s that for our Author of the Week! Tune in next time for our next author, Stohl’s co-writer and friend, Kami Garcia.