Arie Kaplan is the author of the 96 Facts series for kids, which includes 96 Facts about Taylor Swift and 96 Facts about Timothée Chalamet. His many other books include From Krakow to Krypton. He is also a screenwriter and video game writer.
Q: What inspired you to write the 96 Facts series for kids?
A: I can’t take all the credit. My editor, Nick Magliato—the series was his idea. By December 2022 I had been corresponding with him for two years. He edits stuff I’d like to work on, and I thought I should reach out.
I sent very polite emails every once in a while, and one time he said, I do need a writer for two books, 96 Facts about Taylor Swift and 96 Facts about Timothée Chalamet. Can you do this? I said, Absolutely! I had written nonfiction books for kids and was familiar with the careers of Taylor Swift and Timothée Chalamet.
The biggest challenge with Taylor Swift was that she had such a prolific career. Getting to 5,500 words is tough. With each book, I think, How can I relate to the subject of the book? What is their journey?
With someone like Taylor Swift, you see her as an untouchable pop star and you can’t relate to anything she’s going through—but she is a person like everyone else. She had a period when she was struggling like everyone else.
I was nervous when I sent in the Taylor Swift book. I had to do a super deep dive, do due diligence. I wanted the book to hold up to scrutiny, so if you’re a Swiftie, it would hold up.
The internet is full of misinformation. I wanted to get all the facts right. Every sentence in the book has footnotes, is sourced, is thoroughly researched. These are public figures who are still alive. I don’t want to misrepresent them.
With the Taylor Swift book, one of the first ideas was not to deal at all with her love life. It’s so gossipy and not anyone’s business except Taylor Swift’s and the person she’s involved with. And because she’s a woman, she’s held up to extra scrutiny that guys are not held up to. I wanted it to be about her personal accomplishments, and not who she’s dating.
Q: As an author, screenwriter, and public speaker, how do all of your various activities complement one another?
A: When I was starting as a freelance writer, I thought, how do I make this work? I wrote humor pieces for Mad magazine, but you can’t make a living with that, so what else do you write?
A lot of my writing heroes did a lot of different things—they were TV comedy writers, comic book writers. Over the years I became skilled enough to do that. Seymour Reit was the creator of Casper the Friendly Ghost. He wrote humor for Mad, and he wrote children’s books. He’s one of my writing heroes. Also Earl Kress, who was an animation writer and did comic book scripts.
Q: So you had people in mind to emulate?
A: Yes. A lot of my career involved finding these things, doing these things, being good at these things—comic book scripts, television scripts, children’s books. It’s very creatively fulfilling. It’s hard work, but everything is hard work. I’m really proud of this.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: There are other 96 Facts books coming out—Billie Eilish is just out, and GOAT Athletes is coming out April 8. Beyoncé is coming out June 10. There are parallels between Beyoncé’s career and Taylor Swift’s career—they started in their tween years and worked very hard to get where they are. And both direct as well, and they both deal with serious issues in their work.
The illustrator, Risa Rodil, is just incredible. It’s another part of what makes these books work.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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