Love, Art & Storytelling in Rome: Brian Selznick on his new novel Run Away With Me

Episode Summary:
In this inspiring episode, Beth and Lisa welcome bestselling author and illustrator Brian Selznick to discuss his latest YA novel Run Away With Me. Brian shares how personal history, queer identity, and the haunting beauty of an empty Rome during the pandemic shaped this deeply moving love story.

Guest Bio:
Brian Selznick is the Caldecott Medal-winning author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which became Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning film Hugo. His innovative storytelling style blends narrative and illustration, captivating readers of all ages. Selznick’s books have sold millions of copies, been translated into over 35 languages, and include the bestsellers Wonderstruck and The Marvels. He lives in Brooklyn and La Jolla with his husband, Dr. David Serlin.

Key Discussion Points:

• Origins of Run Away With Me: Inspired by time spent in a deserted Rome during the pandemic and Brian’s husband's Rome Prize fellowship.
• Setting the Story in 1986: Chosen for its pre-digital intimacy, connection to Fellini's Intervista, and poignant resonance with the emerging AIDS crisis.
• YA Shift: This novel marks a shift to older characters and more intimate, emotional themes, including first love and sexual awakening.
• Illustration vs. Text: Originally intended as a text-only novel, illustrations were later added to immerse readers in Rome and enhance storytelling rhythmically.
• Building Empathy: Through vulnerability and layered character flaws, Brian explores how readers connect with characters even through their mistakes.
• Worldbuilding & Pacing: Brian discusses how his illustrations function as visual memory aids, reducing exposition and preserving narrative flow.
• Film Adaptation Insight: Brian details how Hugo was faithfully adapted by Martin Scorsese, who honored the visual storytelling of the book.

Conclusion:
Brian Selznick offers a masterclass in layered storytelling, blending history, personal experience, and imaginative worldbuilding. Run Away With Me is a love letter to young queer love, art, and the haunting beauty of solitude and discovery. This episode is a must-listen for aspiring authors and fans of emotionally resonant fiction.

Mentioned Links:

• Run Away With Me by Brian Selznick: Publisher's Page
• Brian Selznick's website

Transcript

BETH MCMULLEN

Hi, friends. I'm Beth McMullin. 

LISA SCHMID

And I'm Lisa Schmid. 

BETH MCMULLEN

And we're the co -hosts of Writers with Wrinkles. This is Season 4, Episode 10. And today, we're very excited to welcome Brian Selznick to the show. Brian's books have sold millions of copies, garnered countless awards worldwide, and have been translated into more than 35 languages. He broke open the novel forum with his genre -breaking thematic trilogy, beginning with the Caldecott Medal -winning number one New York Times bestseller, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, adapted into Martin Scorsese's Oscar -winning movie, Hugo. He followed that with the number one New York Times bestseller, Wonderstruck, adapted by celebrated filmmaker Todd Haynes with a screenplay by Selznick, and then the New York Times bestseller, The Marvels. He and his husband, Dr. David Serlin, divide their time between Brooklyn, New York and La Jolla, California. Welcome, Brian. Thank you so much for being here. We are excited to talk to you today.

BRIAN SELZNICK

Thanks so much. I'm happy to chat with you.

BETH MCMULLEN

So you are actually in... my town a few weeks ago i unfortunately wasn't here i live in davis california and you were here and i was in colorado so i missed you but i'm hoping you had a good reception here you were at one of my favorite bookstores in the world the avid reader yes yeah it was great to be at the avid reader and i love visiting there and had a great time sorry sorry not to see you but happy to be talking with you now so

BRIAN SELZNICK

yeah it was great to be at the avid reader and i love visiting there and had a great time sorry sorry not to see you but happy to be talking with you now so

BETH MCMULLEN

Run Away With Me came out April 1st. It's being praised, of course, for its beautiful illustrations and the moving depiction of first love between Danny and Angelo, set in Rome in 1986. So tell us a little bit about the book.

BRIAN SELZNICK

Yeah, it was inspired by this very strange experience my husband and I had during the pandemic, where for the first three months we were stuck on opposite sides of the country. not knowing when we were going to get back together then i got back to san diego and we were together for a year and he's an academic and he won something at that point called the rome prize given by the american academy in rome and they actually figured out how to get us and about 50 other people the rome prize winners and their families into rome at the height of the pandemic so about six days after the insurrection we found ourselves on a plane with a lot of other folks heading into Rome. And everyone was working on a project that had something to do with Italy or Rome. My husband was writing about an Italian architect. And I got to spend nine months walking around an almost entirely empty Rome with no tourists, no Italians going out. And the friends we made, the other Rome prize winners were... telling us stories about the obelisks and about mosaics and about churches. And I just kept thinking that should be in a story and that should be in a story and that should be in a story. And as I was walking around, I began to imagine these two boys falling in love. I didn't know who they were or what their stories were, but about a year after, year and a half after we got back, I started putting all of this together and making it into what eventually became Runaway With Me.

BETH MCMULLEN

Rome is one of my favorite cities. And to hear you talk about being able to be there without all the tourists, can't imagine. That must have been incredible. I mean, of course, you know, obviously all the horrible stuff that was going on during that time period, but still that experience of kind of being there with a little bit of... peace almost and quiet, which, you know, Rome is so popular. It's rare to be there where you're not feeling like the crush of the tourists. Yeah,

BRIAN SELZNICK

it was a very, very strange and beautiful and scary experience. And, you know, the benefit, the upside was really extraordinary. I got to go to the Sistine Chapel like once a week, and I was often the only person there besides the guard. You know, got to go to the Pantheon, the Colosseum by ourselves or with our friends. And, you know, by the time we left, the borders, the doors had opened up a little bit and there were some people coming and some Italians going out again. Some friends who were able to travel came through the city and we were eventually able to get to Florence and Venice, which was quite nice. But the majority of the time. The only place we could go was the streets of Rome or the churches, which never closed. But a lot of the great art in Rome is in the churches. So I would go spend the afternoon with taravagios that usually have huge crowds around them. Just me and David or me and some friends or me by myself at this church. I didn't want to write a pandemic book, but I wanted to write... about the feeling of being alone, which is why I said it in the height of the summer, imagining a lot of people going away from Rome, and then also trying to imagine that you first fall in love with someone, everyone else disappears anyway. So I was able to kind of get across the emptiness without it actually taking place during the pandemic.

BETH MCMULLEN

I was thinking about the fact that you said it. mid 80s before we had all of this technology that keeps us constantly connected was that purposeful to sort of I mean when you talk about being alone that time you could be more isolated than maybe today did you have that in mind or was it just that that that year kind of resonated with you personally

BRIAN SELZNICK

Yeah, the one thing I know when I start a story is it's probably going to not have any cell phones in it. It's probably going to be set in a time before cell phones. I have no interest in writing about cell phones, and I also have no way to really truly understand what it's like to be a young person living on their phone.

BRIAN SELZNICK

dramatic device. And so a lot of times movies and books have to figure out how to get cell phones out of their characters' hands. And the actual reason I picked 1986 was because I needed an elephant in my story. The boys meet at the Elephant Obelisk, which is a marble elephant with an obelisk on its back designed by the sculptor Bernini. And I just had this idea that the boys would eventually encounter a real elephant where they would have a profound experience with it and i you know i figured there might be a zoo or something in rome but that didn't seem interesting so i thought that maybe there had been a movie filmed in rome that had an elephant because there's a film studio called chinashita that i wanted to write about that i did get to visit while i was there and so i i knew frederico fellini made a lot of movies at chinashita and he seemed like the kind of director who would probably have an elephant in one of his movies And sure enough, he made a film called Intervista that came out in 1987 that had an elephant in it. So I imagined that in 1986, when they would have been filming it, there must have been an elephant in the studio. They must have had a place where they kept the elephant, some kind of pen that they created. So that's why I picked 1986. But then, of course, it turns out that was the beginning of the AIDS crisis, another pandemic that I lived through, many of us lived through. And as often happens, something that feels accidental turns out to be the key thing that you most needed.

LISA SCHMID

I love that when you're writing a story and you put something in and then later on, it's almost like serendipity. It's something else like figures into your storytelling that you're like, oh my gosh, that's why I had it there. And then you find the reason. and how it's supposed to fit in. So that sounds, I mean, that sounds exactly like what I was just saying, very serendipitous.

BRIAN SELZNICK

Yes, that happens every single time I work on a book again and again and again. It always surprises me. It always amazes me. And it makes me feel like I'm headed in the right direction.

LISA SCHMID

absolutely yeah that's happened to me a couple times and each time i'm like oh oh my god i didn't see that coming you you're like i'm so smart i'm so this is all so purposeful and i'm not just flailing around here with ideas and words and hoping it all comes together yeah there was a i can't remember i can't remember who it was they said that

BETH MCMULLEN

you're like i'm so smart i'm so this is all so purposeful and i'm not just flailing around here with ideas and words and hoping it all comes together yeah

BRIAN SELZNICK

there was a i can't remember i can't remember who it was they said that You can use a coincidence to get a character into a story, but you can't use a character to get out of a story or get out of a plot problem. And I think about, I love coincidences, and obviously we're talking about the joy of experiencing them ourselves. And so I think about when I'm writing a coincidence into a story, there are coincidences that are often parts of my plot, like actually coincidences that I make up for the characters. And I just, you know, whenever I'm writing about a coincidence or if someone has a question about a coincidence in one of my story, I'm like, well, it's that's realism to me. You know, that's that's actually how things happen.

BETH MCMULLEN

Yeah, absolutely. We need those coincidences sometimes to kind of, you know, get us where we're going.

BRIAN SELZNICK

Yeah. So you're best known,

BETH MCMULLEN

So you're best known, obviously, for illustrated books that you published with scholastics or middle grade type books. This feels like a pivot to young adult. Do you feel like that influenced your writing style, the way that you presented this story, as opposed to your works from the past? Because it is a different genre with different expectations and a different group of readers.

BRIAN SELZNICK

Yeah, it feels very much a part of a continuum. But I was aware that I was writing about things I had never written about before. And writing... about characters who were an age that I never had written before. And that's really the main guideline is who's the main character? How old are they? And generally, my stories are told from the points of view of the main character, even if it's not first person. You know, even like in the invention of Hugo Cabret, the main character is about, I don't know, 12 or so, 13. And even though it's not first person, it's third person, We generally don't learn about anything in the story that Hugo doesn't learn. So it has a first -person perspective. And this has a literal first -person perspective in Runaway With Me. And because the boys were 16, because they're falling in love for the first time, because I fell in love for the first time when I was 30, real experience akin to the ones the boys have in the book. It felt very fictional. It felt very much like I was making up and imagining what this kind of love would be like half a lifetime earlier than when I experienced it myself. But I did have asthma and I did have surgery on my chest, which I gave to one of the characters in the book. So there are... there are many, many elements in the story that do come directly from my life besides the experience of being in Rome itself. And I knew that the boys were going to be discovering each other sexually for the first time and allowing themselves to be touched. And so, you know, so that was interesting because I had never thought, you know, just was never thought about writing about that before because the characters I was writing about weren't really interested in that. And they had... I've had characters with intense bonds with other kids, intense, very strong bond friendship -wise. But I was aware that these boys were interested in each other in another way. And like in many of my books, I gave the boys a secret space. I like a good secret room, a good safe space. And I was conscious of when I, as the writer of the story, even though I, again, I'm writing first person. So I'm writing from the perspective of a 16 year old, but I'm also a grown man writing this story now, inspired by my memories and my imagination. So I was also conscious of when I needed to leave the room. And so, so that became an interesting instinct or like a way of listening to my instinct. about what it was like to write about when they first see each other, when they first touch each other. And then at which point I need to step out and leave them in the room alone.

LISA SCHMID

Oh my God, that's such an interesting perspective. And have you, I mean, have you felt that way before when you've been writing other scenes from a first person perspective or just, you know, was it specifically in regards to this book?

BRIAN SELZNICK

Yeah, I feel like I've never, I've never had to, I've never felt, I mean, this is all imaginary, right? Like nothing real is happening here, but I've never felt the need to step away. Yeah. Generally, if I step away from a scene, it's because the scene's over, you know, or there's nothing more to write, or I know that I've given enough information for the reader to. put together what's happening, which is essentially what I'm doing with The Secret Room and The Boys. I've given the reader enough information to understand what's happening. And then I step out as the writer, as the narrator, so that the reader can then decide what is happening. And that will depend on the reader. That will depend on, you know, the person holding the book and their own personal experiences. And I wanted to, so it's both kind of a gift. for the boys, but it's also for the reader as well to decide what they want. Because I'm always interested in that space you leave for the reader so that they can do some work.

BETH MCMULLEN

I think it's really respectful of the reader too. You are acknowledging that they have been with you enough and you have put forward enough that they can take it then to the next place. works for the way that they're receiving the story i i love that idea of leaving space for readers and there's some books that i read where they don't and i you can almost feel yourself you're not quite as engaged because nothing is being asked of you you're kind of being spoon -fed the whole thing so you're like okay whatever i guess that's what it is there's no room for you to bring your own experience creative thought whatever to bear on the story so i i think that's great and that's you know i mean i'm sure that you are

LISA SCHMID

kind of

BETH MCMULLEN

creative thought whatever to bear on the story so i i think that's great and that's you know i mean i'm sure that you are getting that the feedback from your readers probably acknowledges that because I feel like people, when you leave space like that, they're much more interested in discussing the book and talking to the, you know, reaching out to the author. So hopefully you're getting a lot of positive feedback from that.

BRIAN SELZNICK

Yeah. I mean, it's not always something you're conscious of. It's not, it's not like, Oh, I'm really glad you left space for me to do work. It's more like I notice it when someone like you're saying wants to engage with me about the story, wants to talk about. what it meant to them, what they saw in it. And that's when I generally have a sense that I may have done the right thing or it may be working.

BETH MCMULLEN

Yeah, because they're thinking about it. They're going off in their day and they've gone to work or school or whatever, and they find that it's still in their thoughts and they're trying to work it through, which is the best kind of reading experience. That's what I want as a reader. So that is great.

BRIAN SELZNICK

Love that. Good. Thank you.

LISA SCHMID

begin a new project? Does the initial spark come from an image or from words? And how does that starting point shape your overall creative process?

BRIAN SELZNICK

Yeah, I've noticed that generally it's a place, right? There's a city, there's a house, there's some place that I find intriguing, whether it's Paris or London or Rome or New York. And then there's usually something about that place, a true story, some anecdote or some mysterious, interesting thing that I have stumbled upon or learned about. And I have a feeling that it would be a good place for a story to be set. I generally have a pretty clear early sense of the gender. and the age of my characters, but they usually look to me like an out -of -focus silhouette. I don't know who they are. I don't know what their names are. I don't know what they're doing. I don't know why they're in this place, but I can sense that there's someone about that age there.

BRIAN SELZNICK

And then I often need a second person so they have someone to talk to, and then I have to figure out who that person is.

BRIAN SELZNICK

And it feels very slow and it feels very long, the process, and it feels frustrating and it feels relatively impossible. But then another idea does come, another moment, another decision does land where I realize, okay, now I am going to make this boy American. I'm going to make him, you know, he can run away with me. It took me a while to figure out. who the two boys were, where they were from. I decided eventually one would be American, one would be Italian. That also made sense dramatically. One character could teach the other character about the city of Rome. I was being taught, like I was mentioning, I was being taught all these incredible things about the city. So I wanted to use that information so that one character could teach the other character that information, which is actually, of course, me. by way of one character talking to another character telling you the reader the information that i wanted to tell you and so it's you know it's it's you know like a electric transmission being sent through the characters and i eventually decided the american boy's mother would be an academic she would be an expert in paleography which is an expert in like antique handwriting she can decipher very, very bad handwriting, which is an actual study. And she studies old books. But again, these are all decisions I'm slowly putting together as I'm coming up with more of the story. And for the book, I eventually started imagining other queer love stories in other time periods. So I eventually wrote three other entire love stories, one in the 1940s, one in 1900. And one in the 1600s that would weave back and forth with the stories about the boys themselves that would either reflect what they're experiencing or enhance what they're experiencing in some way. And then ultimately, I was conscious of wanting to write a story about queer history, because most people who are queer don't grow up not knowing. that they have a history. And maybe that's changing because of the internet. But I didn't know anybody else was queer when I was growing up, and I didn't know that I was part of a queer history. So moving to New York after college and learning about the idea that I had always existed, there had been people like me forever, just because we're usually not born into families like us. And so we have to learn about our histories ourselves. often separately, often from other people who have come before us. And I wanted to weave that into this narrative as well.

BETH MCMULLEN

I love that idea of the sort of having to seek your history, that it's not always presented to you and that there's that exploration that I think if you're a creative person like you are, that kind of just opens up all these. avenues. Do you think you will revisit these characters at any point?

BRIAN SELZNICK

I've never worked on a story in the 34 years I've been making books where I ever had any desire to revisit the characters. The story ends when I feel like the character's story has ended. And usually it's within the childhood of the

BRIAN SELZNICK

it's within the childhood of the character. My first book, The Houdini Box, which was only 48 pages, ended with the 10 -year -old main character growing up and becoming a dad himself. But never say never.

BRIAN SELZNICK

say never.

BRIAN SELZNICK

I feel like the minute I say no, I will never write that is when you get a notification that I've written a sequel to run away.

BETH MCMULLEN

Exactly. Now that I put it in your head, it's going to stay there for a while.

BRIAN SELZNICK

to stay there for a while. So far, the story exists in its entirety within the cover of the book.

BETH MCMULLEN

So, yeah, I mean, if you do wake up tomorrow and suddenly find yourself at your desk writing a sequel, please feel free to blame me. I take full responsibility.

BETH MCMULLEN

So next question is a little bit about world building, which you do phenomenally. Writers that we talk to who do more fantasy type work talk about world building and pacing and how making sure that both of them are getting their due without one kind of taking over and the world building slowing the pacing or the pacing leaving something to be desired for the world building. So what techniques do you use to seamlessly integrate the world building into your narrative without slowing down the pacing or losing momentum?

BRIAN SELZNICK

Yeah, I always think I have no techniques, right? I always think there's nothing that I'm thinking about that quote -unquote helps me make something more clear. What I'm doing, and what we're all doing, is trying to tell a story, right? So I think that when I'm doing something that... is considered world building or would be considered world building or or is related to the pacing it's for me when i'm when i especially because i i don't write i don't write in order i don't write i don't know what my plot is when i start you know i just mean it's talking about it not you know not knowing who the characters are i write in a very amorphous way until like over many many months sometimes more than a year until

BRIAN SELZNICK

me when i'm when i especially because i i don't write i don't write in order i don't write i don't know what my plot is when i start you know i just mean it's talking about it not you know not knowing who the characters are i write in a very amorphous way until like over many many months sometimes more than a year until things really solidify. So for me, it's about getting across whatever information I have to get across at any given moment so that the character in the book has the tools with which they can proceed to unlock the plot and play out and live. what will become the plot while i'm giving the reader enough information to know the context in which this is happening and because i can draw i can sometimes use the pictures to literally world build if we're you know if we're going to use if we're going to continue using that phrase the the runaway with me was originally supposed to not be illustrated i wanted it to be like a quote -unquote normal book where you are the illustrator. The reader in a book without pictures is the illustrator. And I always think that it's easier for you to illustrate a book the better the writing is. And that doesn't mean some great writing has almost no description of what anything looks like or what a person looks like. But if the writing is good enough... you will have a very clear image of who the person is and what the place is. But my editor, David Levithan at Scholastic, felt pretty strongly that we could probably come up with a reason to have some images. And so I got to thinking about that experience we were talking about of walking through the empty city of Rome. And I was writing about boys going to all of these important places to me. In the text, I was describing all of them in great detail, the Pantheon, the Elephant Obelisk. But I realized that if I start the book with a visual walk through the empty city of Rome, I could, when you get to the text, describe things less because you will have already seen everything. So I could say the Elephant Obelisk and just leave it at that because you will have seen the obelisk on the back of the elephant in the square behind the... I can say, you know, you get into the Pantheon, which is the big dome with the oculus in the center through which you can see the sky, because you've already seen that in the drawings. And then I realized that, I was guessing for the most part, my readers will not have been to Rome. So by putting you on this walk through the empty city, I am also giving you a memory of having been through Rome. when you're reading the book so you are taking the memory of having seen the drawings which is of the walk through rome into the text and that way i'm able to literally world build the city of rome picture by picture by picture and and there is actually one person who you're following you know you may eventually notice the shadow of someone or there is a little figure in many of the of the drawings and I don't think it's giving too much away to reveal that the end of the drawing sequence turns out to be a dream that one of the main characters is having inside a church where he's taken refuge from the rain and has fallen asleep. And that helps me with worldbuilding because I can, again,

BRIAN SELZNICK

me with worldbuilding because I can, again, because I can draw. And again, whenever I'm writing or if I'm reading someone else's story and they're asking me for advice or my thoughts on their work, I'm aware that it all needs to be done invisibly.

BRIAN SELZNICK

aware that it all needs to be done invisibly. You don't ever want to feel like the narrator is stopping because they need to tell you what is happening in this world. And if it's sci -fi or fantasy, to feel like you're being stopped so that the narrator can then say, well, in this world, when you touch this thing, this is what happens. So the magic trick is finding ways within the narrative where you have natural moments for these important facts. World building is creating facts for the world that you're creating if it's not a realistic, not a real world. But again, even if it's a real world, if you're writing a period piece, you don't want to say something like, boy, the oil embargo is really affecting me, you know, here in 1977, you know, like you have to find ways to make it more clear. And I realized in run away with me, which is set very specifically in a year, there are almost no drawings of people.

BRIAN SELZNICK

almost no drawings of people. There is zero description of clothing, except sometimes it's being put on or taken off. There's a t -shirt. I think, I think at one point I talk about a t -shirt. And other than the fact that, like you noticed, there are no cell phones, there's nothing in the text, or very little in the text, that screams, this is 1986. There's one mention of the AIDS crisis, which is just coming up, one mention of a young man named Ryan White, who was a hemophiliac who got AIDS from a blood transfusion, who became very well known, who by coincidence was in Rome in 1986. And because none of that is really important, or at least none of that is really important to me. What's important to me is the story. And so if the oil embargo is a really important part of the story, then I guess you figure out how to get that in there. But for me, it's about finding ways to let those elements come through in the narrative and to be expressed through the characters.

BETH MCMULLEN

Did deciding to write a novel without pictures, when you had that conscious decision, did that make you nervous?

BRIAN SELZNICK

It made me excited. I've always had pictures in my books, and I really like writing. I love language. It's also much easier to write than it is to draw for me.

LISA SCHMID

I bet.

BRIAN SELZNICK

It's just maybe for everybody. Maybe not for everyone. I don't know. But for me... And it's just so nice to be able to write, like, he walked down the hallway and then be like, oh, no, no, he ran down the hallway. Oh, no, he ran quickly down the hallway. Oh, no, he ran quickly down the marble hallway. You know, as opposed to, like, the five drawings that I would have had to do to indicate each of those things. And I love, like, there are certain writers whose rhythms, I think, infiltrated my thinking. The main one being Ray Bradbury. And the way he uses language and the way his sentences have a kind of musical rhythm to them, I think has entered me very deeply in my subconscious. And I often have a kind of musical rhythm that I'm writing to that I don't understand until I'm filling it with words. So sometimes I can tell this sentence is three beats off. But I don't know what the three beats are, and I don't know what the word is. And I'm not even really that musical in my life. It's not like I'm a musician. It's just that I often have a feeling of what the rhythm of the sentence should be like, and the way a paragraph should end. And I know that that da -da has to be and sat, or and rest, whatever it is. really excited me. And the picture sequences in Runaway With Me, because there is one at the beginning, a long one, like we talked about setting up Rome. But there is also a drawing sequence at the end, which I also did not want originally. I wanted the text to be the, I wanted the end of the story to be the last line of text. And David Levithan, my editor, again... Are you saying the name of your editor?

LISA SCHMID

Are you saying the name of your editor?

BRIAN SELZNICK

David Levithan.

LISA SCHMID

It doesn't sound bitter or anything.

BRIAN SELZNICK

David and I have been friends for a very long time. I actually illustrated one of his books because he's one of the great queer young adult authors working today, as well as being a publisher and editing books like the Babysitter Club series and The Hunger Games. He's a really extraordinary person. And his edits are deeply insightful. But as you're picking up, It is very funny to me how strongly I felt about not having drawings at the beginning and then how strongly I felt about how to not have drawings at the end and how right David turned out to be, right? The reason there are drawings at the beginning and the end of the book now is because David Levithan was right. And that's something else I'm aware of when I'm getting notes that I disagree with. Is do I disagree with them because I have an ego and it wasn't my idea and I don't want to do it? Or do I disagree with it because it's wrong for my book and for me? And I will say to anyone listening who picks up the book,

BRIAN SELZNICK

will say to anyone listening who picks up the book, if it's possible, try not to look ahead at the drawings at the end of the book until you get there. Because I do think they reveal themselves in a nice way. narratively but the the the drawings at the beginning and the end are additive in many ways so the text that i was writing that was originally meant to have no pictures it exists in its entirety within those two sets of drawings and we also made an audiobook that that came out alongside this book where we replaced the picture sequences with sound effects and beautiful music. And so in fact, the audio book is actually closer to my original intention for the story. And I think it's really, really beautiful. But the drawings now feel like they're very much, you know, necessary for the story.

LISA SCHMID

Well, now I'm going to go right to the end of the book. And so just so they know. I am the person that will read like the first couple chapters. And because I have anxiety, I have to know how the story ends. I hear you.

BRIAN SELZNICK

I hear you.

LISA SCHMID

Don't stress out. Like I know how the character is going to end. And so I'm like, okay, I just, I got to make sure they're okay. They're both alive.

BRIAN SELZNICK

both alive.

LISA SCHMID

Right. And so there is only, and I don't know if you've ever read this book, The House on the Cerulean Sea. No. Yeah. Oh my gosh. If you. Go read it.

BRIAN SELZNICK

It's so good.

LISA SCHMID

so good. And it is the one story. You will love this book. Okay. And I'm just going to say ahead of time, you're welcome. Because you will fall in love with this book. And it's the only time I've ever read a story where I didn't read the last chapter because I knew how it was going to end. And when I finished it, I was clapping. I was like, oh my God, it's ending. But I didn't feel any tension. Like, I mean, it was just one of those stories where I'm like, I know it's going to be okay. But otherwise, I always read the last chapter. And so it doesn't matter. I'm going to go back to the end anyway. So I'm going to see it right away. So it's like you almost just gave me permission in a backhanded sort of way.

LISA SCHMID

I have one more question for you. And one of the things I wanted to ask about was how you approach building empathy. with your characters so that people can connect with them regardless of their bad choices.

BRIAN SELZNICK

We all make bad choices.

LISA SCHMID

bad choices. We all make bad choices,

BRIAN SELZNICK

make bad choices, don't we? That's interesting. I remember actually getting a note about empathy when I was working on the invention of Hugo Cabret with Tracy Mack,

BRIAN SELZNICK

I was working on the invention of Hugo Cabret with Tracy Mack, who's my other editor at Scholastic.

BRIAN SELZNICK

And she... talked to me directly about wanting to make sure that the reader felt empathy slash sympathy for this boy who's living alone in a train station. And again, not hard to build sympathy for an orphan living in a train with no clothes to change into, no money, having to steal food. There's empathy built into that. But I was aware that he is a thief. And I was interested in the idea of raising the question for young people, when is it okay to do the wrong thing?

BRIAN SELZNICK

But there was some moment early in the process where Tracy felt like either the boy felt too confident or there was something about him that didn't feel empathetic enough or sympathetic enough. And I thought that was interesting. I often don't exactly know what the answer to my editor's queries are when they come up. But I just suddenly got this image of him rubbing the buttons on his jacket. And it became this nervous tick that he would do whenever he was feeling scared or lonely. And he would start rubbing the buttons on his jacket. And there was something about the act of rubbing buttons that somehow the tactility of it, there was just, I could feel it making him feel very sweet and vulnerable. But otherwise, I don't think that's something I'm really generally very conscious of. And again, the bad choices my characters make are often choices they are forced into. I don't write a lot of villains. The only villain in Run Away With Me is time, because the boys know they have to separate at the end of the summer. And there is fear, and there is grief, and there is... big emotion and there is danger because it's 1986 and they're in rome and it is a dangerous city in many ways and you know i mentioned earlier i gave one of the boys my asthma and and an operation that i had when i was 10 on my chest that left me with this very big scar and a very unusually shaped chest and

BRIAN SELZNICK

know i mentioned earlier i gave one of the boys my asthma and and an operation that i had when i was 10 on my chest that left me with this very big scar and a very unusually shaped chest and the vulnerability that the character then expresses because of his compromised physical state. Again, all of which is directly from my actual body. Like I, like I, everything that that boy talks about with his chest and his fear of being touched in his, you know, the, the, the sense of needing to protect this area that even though the operation healed, it still feels kind of open. psychically or open in this very profound delicate way is real for me like that's not a metaphor that's that's all real although i realize it could also become a metaphor for someone most people have not had a giant operation on their chest when they were 10 but we there are many people who have experienced being afraid the fear of being touched

BRIAN SELZNICK

there are many people who have experienced being afraid the fear of being touched Or a vulnerability of what that means when you first fall in love with someone and you want to touch someone and you want to be touched. And, you know, I think I was 26 before I actually let someone touch my chest. And I remember bursting into tears because it was so intense. And I'm trying to give that to a 16 -year -old, right? To imagine what would it have been like for me to let... myself be that vulnerable when i was 16 so so there's there's vulnerability literally you know built into the body of the character into the situation and i think it's yeah maybe it's also just about a certain kind of balance so that someone isn't just one thing right it's it's about the the ways in which we are complicated and we have people who we really don't like but they do this thing that's really interesting or we know they really love their child or they you know or we can you know if we're wise enough maybe we can imagine ourselves into their situation and think okay from their point of view they feel they're doing the right thing or they feel that this isn't a problem and maybe that can help you feel a little better about you know whatever is upsetting you or not you know i don't i don't know but i i think that sense of complication maybe has something to do with the answer to this question i actually think that's a really nice way of thinking about it starting with those details you were talking about the rubbing of the buttons i often find that i those are the things that connect me more strongly to a character that i feel more in their in their space those small details

BETH MCMULLEN

actually think that's a really nice way of thinking about it starting with those details you were talking about the rubbing of the buttons i often find that i those are the things that connect me more strongly to a character that i feel more in their in their space those small details And again, that idea that people are multifaceted and complicated and those little details give you an insight into these different parts of them. It's a really nice way of thinking about it. And I think our listeners are going to really like that description. It's going to stick with them. Our last question for you is from one of our listeners, Adam Rosenbaum. So Adam is a huge fan of... Hugo Cabret, and loved how well it translated to the screen. He's curious about what kind of involvement you had in the movie, and if you worked alongside Scorsese at all, or did they just take your book and run with it, as often happens in Hollywood?

BRIAN SELZNICK

I had zero involvement with the film. The involvement I had with the film was deciding to sign a contract with a producer. who said they were going to bring it to Martin Scorsese. So even that wasn't guaranteed. But I knew that the producer made beautiful films, and I was very willing to take the chance where the main option was possibly having Martin Scorsese make a film. And it went to Scorsese, then there was a writer's strike, and then Scorsese left the movie. Another director came on, another writer came on. It was going to be very different. Let's just leave it at that. And then that person left and Scorsese miraculously came back. And I eventually got the chance to visit the set.

BRIAN SELZNICK

got the chance to visit the set. While the sets were being built, I met Mr. Scorsese for the first time. We had about a half hour in his office. And he told me about his love of the book, his love of the history of film, his excitement about filming it in 3D. The movie was originally made in 3D. His excitement about using a new technology that he'd never used before. And then I eventually was able to visit the set while they were filming. I ended up staying for about two weeks. I ended up in the movie. I have a cameo in the very last scene so you can see me. And I have a line. They gave me one line that morning. When can I sign up is the line that I had to deliver. Standing between the great actor Michael Stuhlbarg, who happens to be a friend of mine, so he helped me be at ease, and Ben Kingsley and Helen McCrory, and Asa Butterfield, of course, who played Hugo. In the last scene, everybody in the movie is in that scene. And it's a big tracking shot, which Scorsese is very... famous for, and Larry McConkie, who has filmed all of his tracking shots for many, many decades, filmed that scene. And when I got back to the set for the beginning of those two weeks, while they were filming, I saw that everybody on the set had a copy of my book.

BRIAN SELZNICK

that everybody on the set had a copy of my book. Every department had copies of my book. They were all around in various tents everywhere. They were on tables. The special effects department told me that Scorsese would send them back to the drawing board if the shots didn't line up with the compositions I drew in my book. They ended up winning an Oscar for their work. Dante Ferretti, the extraordinary set designer, had giant blow -up reproductions of my drawings on the walls of his office. And he also won an Oscar for the film. I have a photograph of Martin Scorsese directing Asa Butterfield and Chloe Moritz from my book. He's holding the book open to the drawing of Isabel falling as they're chasing through the train station. Scorsese edited one sequence like my page turns. There's a scene in the book where Hugo falls on the tracks and the train comes at him because I'm making a book, not a movie. I had a drawing of the train in the distance. Then you turn the page and the train's a little closer. Then you turn the page and the train's closer. Then you turn the page and it fills the whole. So in the movie, Mr. Scorsese certainly could have just filmed the train coming at the camera, but he filmed it. So it was back here and then it edits and it's here and then it edits and it's closer and then it edits till it fills the whole screen, which is literally page for page, my drawing sequence, which is. Like I accidentally storyboarded a Martin Scorsese film. So all of that to say that I saw on set that they were very, very respectful of my book. And I knew that Mr. Scorsese obviously loved the book enough to commit many years of his life to making this movie. The first time I got to see a cut of the film was in his private film projection room in his office in New York. And it was me and my mom and my husband and some people from Scholastic who had helped make the book. And it wasn't finished yet. There still were lots of special effects scenes that had to be made. There's a long monologue that Ben Kingsley has at the end about the history of film that he hadn't recorded yet. So Martin Scorsese recorded that and we heard his voice. But that's where I really saw how very close he was sticking to my book. And then I eventually realized that the reason I think the movie works so beautifully is because they took the plot of my book and kept it almost completely intact while reversing the intention of my book. So my book celebrates film, but ultimately is about the importance of books. And they made a movie that celebrates books and writing and bookstores, all of which are part of the plot. But it's ultimately about the importance of cinema. And that's what's important to Martin Scorsese. That's what his life has been dedicated to, not just making films, but preserving them. You know, he brought Michael Powell back to attention, who had made the red shoes, who had fallen out of favor and into obscurity. He's a film scholar. And of course, Hugo Cabret turns out to be about a film director, about someone who brings a film director back from obscurity, about a film scholar. I also kind of accidentally seemed to have written Martin Scorsese's imaginary autobiography. And so while I wasn't directly involved in the making of the movie, the entire team led by Martin Scorsese made sure that everybody used my book as the touchstone for what they were doing.

BETH MCMULLEN

That's a fabulous experience. I actually remember thinking when the movie came out, when I saw it, that it was a perfect fit for him as a director because it did touch on so many things that were important to his experience and his life. It was a good match. Or on the surface, I think it may have seemed like, well, okay, this is going to be interesting. But I think it was spot on and a beautiful movie and a good experience for you. There's so many authors who's... books could end up in Hollywood and they come away just being like, oh boy, that was not what I wish. So thank you for answering that for Adam. He is going to be very excited to have that. So that wraps up our time, Brian. Thank you so much for being here with us today. It has been an absolute pleasure talking to you. So thank you again for making time to come on the show.

BRIAN SELZNICK

Thanks. It was really great to talk to you both.

BETH MCMULLEN

And listeners, Lisa and I will see you next time with an Ask Beth and Lisa episode. Please see the podcast notes for how to send us a question or use any of our social channels to reach out. And until then, happy reading, writing, and listening.