Welcome to the second installment of our new interview series, “5 Questions with …” Today we dig into the twisted mind of Rob Renzetti , who has spent most of his adult life making kids’ cartoons but recently slithered into his new role as a Spooky Middle Grade author. Rob’s new book, THE TWISTED TOWER OF ENDLESS TORMENT, was published last month and we’re thrilled to chat with him about it today!
1. Tell us about THE TWISTED TOWER OF ENDLESS TORMENT.
Well, it’s the sequel to THE HORRIBLE BAG OF TERRIBLE THINGS which follows the misadventures of Zenith Maelstrom, who opens a mysterious bag and unleashes a sinister creature that snatches his sister Apogee and drags her inside the horrible bag to the hidden, hideous world of GrahBhag. Zenith must save himself and his sister from a multitude of terrors.
In TWISTED TOWER, Apogee is anxious to return to GrahBhag to right all that went wrong on their first trip. Zenith is reluctant, but when Apogee finally decides to go it alone, he is forced to follow her. He discovers that their prior actions have made them infamous outlaws: “Wanted Dead, Alive, or Eaten.” The squabbling siblings must settle their differences before they are captured and sent to Eternity Tower, GrahBhag’s most notorious prison.
2. What is your writing process?
I’m a plotting pantser. Or maybe a pantsing plotter. I always have my beginning, middle, and end worked out beforehand with lots of notes and details for sections and chapters that may or may not survive. The way I outline is really a bit of a mess with big ideas and small details all crammed together without much rhyme or reason.
Once I’m ready to write my first draft, I start at the top of that mess/outline and write the story from beginning to end, eliminating the notes as I write the scenes they refer to or as I decide the idea is no longer relevant. There are things I want to happen but I’m not always sure how to make them happen. Finding out how to get there is usually fun and sometimes nerve-wracking.
3. What was the most fun thing about writing THE TWISTED TOWER OF ENDLESS TORMENT?
Writing the section that takes place in the Twisted Tower aka Eternity Tower. It was a lot of fun playing with classic prison movie tropes and characters. All the inmates names are literal. So the old prisoner who’s been “inside” forever is called Old Timer and he carries a stopwatch which he times his every action with. And the bookish inmate who’s in charge of the library is called Four Eyes and is a creature entirely composed of four cantaloupe-sized eyeballs stuck together in a two-by-two grid.
I also incorporated my love for the art of M.C. Escher into the architecture of the Tower. Many of Escher’s images feature impossible perspective applied to buildings and spaces that could never exist and yet seem as convincing as any photograph. I thought his work would be the perfect inspiration for the various perplexing physical spaces and puzzles that Zenith encounters in Eternity Tower. It was a fun writing challenge to describe in prose the sort of wonderful visual confusion Escher achieves in his artwork.
4. What are you working on now?
I’m currently writing the third book in The Horrible Bag series, which has the working title of THE CURSED CLOAK OF THE WRETCHED WRAITH. It’s winding its way through the editorial process as we speak and will be out in Summer 2025. This will be the conclusion of the Maelstrom siblings’ GrahBhagian adventures, at least for now, and it’s been very fun and very stressful creating what I hope will be a satisfying conclusion to my first original trilogy.
5. Last question! What’s your favorite Halloween costume you’ve ever worn?
My first homemade costume, which I created when I was in fifth or sixth grade. I’d been gifted a magic kit that included a black plastic top hat. I never learned any tricks, but I used the hat as the starting point for a Harpo Marx costume, which included a curly blonde wig, tan trench coat, and old bicycle horn. The worst part of the costume turned out to be the hat that inspired it. It was too small for my head and because it was hard plastic there was no way to adjust or manipulate it to get it to stay on. I had to spend the whole of Halloween night holding it on top of my head. But I absolutely loved Harpo Marx and still do so, despite the difficulties, it’s still my favorite costume.
Spooky Middle Grade 