Ryan Douglass
Ryan Douglass is the author of young adult horror novel The Taking of Jake Livingston, a New York Times bestseller and an ALA Rainbow Book List Pick; The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Jay, a reimagining of The Great Gatsby set in 1920s Harlem; and Night of Madness, a collaboration with the company behind Clown in a Cornfield. His work explores the ways young people fight to 
survive in hostile worlds. He lives in Atlanta with his dog and spends his free time baking ambitious desserts and scoping out true crime documentaries.
My Q&A with the author:
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Follow Ryan Douglass on Instagram and Threads.
I think Night of Madness is pretty on-the-nose for what you’re getting. It’s a horror novel that takes place over one night and follows a character who gets trapped in a death game disguised as a game show. “Madness” is the perfect descriptor for what happens as the game induces sensory confusion. This is a collaboration with Temple Hill, so the book was originally called A Night of Madness, but I advocated to drop the “A.” Something about starting with “Night” feels very foreboding to me.
What's in a name?
The main cast was mostly named by Temple Hill, so for their characterizations I followed what the names evoked. For the characters I created, like Mara’s younger brother, Charlie, I wanted to see how I could lean into Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which is what the plot derives from. Most of the characters have common names, some of which call back to the original cast in ways that are felt rather than explicit.
How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?
My teenage self would not be surprised by this at all, because I remember how changed I felt when I read Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman. I knew I wanted to do something similar, with a funhouse/carnival aesthetic that was psychologically dark underneath and formed allegories for the main character’s mental state. I had been playing with story ideas like this for years.
Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?
I find endings to be the hardest part because I like to take risks and go to ambitious places in my writing, but endings require you to give the reader payoff—to ground all your flights of whimsy in logic. I am very Type B, a mood reader, and naturally a more abstract, metaphysical, and metaphorical writer, since my education is in poetry. So while writing beginnings can feel like running into something exciting and new, writing endings always brings me to a grounded place and allows me to stretch that logical muscle.
What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?
Music is always the big one for me. Movies as well, especially when I want to pull off something cinematic. I use the news as noise more than anything, because I get my news online. I stay abreast of politics because I always want to make sure my writing is tuned in to the current moment as much as possible, and because I see that as part of my civic responsibility.
--Marshal Zeringue
