Ep. 29: Character: Randy Ribay on Asking the Right Questions and Graphing Relationships in Writing

Here are highlights from our conversation with award-winning, NYTimes-bestselling author Randy Ribay:

 

• How characters explore the same internal questions he’s grappling with in his own life
• Writing towards ideas rather than adhering to a firm outline
• Doing the work of finding your own process
• What compels a reader to take off their own mask
• The genius of Succession’s character building
• Why Caroline gets all Randy’s royalties on the next book

 

Randy Ribay is an award-winning author of young adult fiction. His most recent novel, Patron Saints of Nothing, earned five starred reviews, was selected as a Freeman Book Award winner, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, LA Times Book Prize, Walden Book Award, Edgar Award, International Thriller Writers Award, and the CILIP Carnegie Medal. His other works include Project Kawayan, After the Shot Drops, and An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes. His next novels, The Chronicles of the Avatar: The Reckoning of Roku (Abrams) and Everything We Never Had (Kokila/Penguin) will be out in 2024. 

 

Born in the Philippines and raised in the Midwest, Randy earned his BA in English Literature from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his Ed.M. in Language and Literacy from Harvard Graduate School of Education. He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, son, and cat-like dog. 

 

Randy's website

 

Randy's Instagram