Hi, Mateo,
Thanks for posting and for all the nice things you said about my books, especially the MASTERMINDS series. As you can imagine, it was a great experience plotting it out and writing it.
Your questions: ***SPOILER ALERT*** I chose Gus Alabaster, C.J. Rackoff, and of course Tamara Dunleavy to deal with. I think any of the others might have been tedious repetition, especially since they were in jail, which limits the interaction that’s possible. Escape would also have been repetitive. It’s a 3-book series because, trust me, the material and the story covered 3 books, not 5. The secret of a successful series is to keep the readers asking for more. The story came from the same place I get all my plots, settings, and characters — from plain old hard work, and a lot of thinking and plotting. No big mystery; it’s just work, and lots of it!
And thanks for getting MASTERMINDS on your school’s morning announcements. I need all the advertising I can get!
Thanks again for taking the time to write to me. I appreciate your interest in me and my work, and I hope you’ll continue to be such a loyal fan. My list is now 90 titles and more on the way, so keep reading!
—-Gordon Korman—-