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Back to Featured Interviews >> MEET MONTE & CLAIRE MONTGOMERY
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| Monte & Claire Montgomery |
Besides reading (of course), Monte loved sports, music, science, and horseplay. He was a good student but faked illness more than once so he could stay home and watch "Dick Van Dyke" show reruns, which he credits more than anything else with inspiring him to be a writer. Claire was a natural-born organizer, of both things and people. In fifth grade she formed "The Nature Club" with several friends. The Club met only once, for a long hike in a dusty canyon on a sweltering afternoon. After one member passed out from heat exhaustion, they disbanded and re-formed as "The Jell-O Club" -- a safe and delicious alternative.
Was your first book accepted immediately? or did you experience a number of rejections?
65 submissions, 64 rejections. We hold up our sheaf of "passes" whenever we do school visits, as proof of the many bumps on the road to publication.
Do you do other types of writing - for example, educational, nonfiction, magazine work?
We've written for television, print, film, stage, animation, CD-ROMs -- everything but skywriting. Among our more memorable projects have been a sitcom about asthma sufferers (funnier than it sounds); a screenplay about Santa Claus's childhood; "Flying Colors," a kids' musical published by Baker's Plays; a pilot for a series featuring a talking, hypochondriacal dog; and a number of articles for "The eGG," an online food magazine. (The memorable part came when we were on a research junket and Claire was attacked by an ostrich.)
What gave you the idea for "Hubert Invents the Wheel"?
"Hubert" began life as a screenplay, during a period when the studios were all clamoring for the next "big idea." We'd been talking about inventions anyway, and we quickly decided that the wheel had to be the biggest idea ever -- at least in the inventing field. When it didn't sell as a movie, we turned the story into a novel instead, and Walker/Bloomsbury (unlike the other 64 publishers!) discovered it in their "slush pile."
What are you working on now?
We've written a sequel (or, strictly speaking, prequel) to Wheel, called "Hubert Invents Music." Set 5,200 years ago in the frigid Scandinavian fishing village of Grimstad, the story explores the origins of everything from melody and harmony to shredding guitar solos and crowd-diving. Our publisher is waiting to see how "Wheel" does before committing to the next one. We have our fingers crossed.
What do you most want students to get out of your school visits?
That people can laugh and learn at the same time. In the course of our talk we tell jokes, do plenty of Q&A, and demonstrate a number of wheeled devices; Claire spins around on a lazy Susan, Monte juggles rings and rides a unicycle -- it's a regular circus.
Has anyone ever written you a fan letter that you’d like to share?
Our favorite would have to be the one that declared "you two are the funniest people I've ever met." And Monte was particularly flattered when, after we finished our dog-and-pony show for a hundred fourth-graders, a girl raised her hand and asked, "have you ever made a list of all your talents?"
Is there anything about yourself that you’d like to share - hobbies, special talents?
Our "day job" -- usually done at night -- is music. Monte plays the piano and Claire sings. We've performed in just about every imaginable venue, from empty San Bernardino hotel lobbies to the Hollywood Bowl. We just returned from a two-night gig at a waste management convention. And you thought the book world was glamorous!