Seth Pickens
Editor in Chief
Illustrated by Yuzu Bynon
Husband-Wife author duo Austin Siegemund-Broka and Emily Wibberly have been writing books since 2012. Both are costa alumni, with Wibberly being a section leader in Costa’s marching band and wind ensemble and Siegemund-Broka being La Vista’s very own Editor-in-Chief
On June 4, the co-authors published their newest YA Novel Heiress Takes All, the story of disinherited teenager Olivia Owens’s journey to steal back her inheritance from her father the day of his wedding. According to the pair, the beautiful, yet stressful experience of their own wedding inspired the setting of the novel.
“We felt that [a wedding] combined really well with the high-stakes, high-wealth premise of a heist,” Wibberly and Siegemund-Broka said. “From there, the idea of this being a story with personal motivation led us to the wedding being our main character’s father’s (with some family revenge thrown in) and her ex-boyfriend getting involved. We wanted to write something that had what we love in our favorite novels, movies and TV — a little of everything. Surprise and action, romance, and relatable humor.”
Writing novels is a multifaceted process. The couple tackles this by dividing and conquering, with Wibberly and Siegemund-Broka playing roles that suit their respective strengths.
According to Emily, she is, “more responsible for outlining each scene and the plot on the whole — the dialogue, the ways each action sequence advances the plot and each interaction of characters advances the romance and related stories.”
Siegemund-Broka says he’s, “most responsible for putting those outlines into the prose of every page, incorporating description and focusing on pacing and language, which we’d often do literally out loud, working in the same room, suggesting sentences to go into the manuscript.”
This collaborative process reached its apex in the production of Heiress Takes All, resulting in a shockingly quick turnaround time for the initial pitch.
“With HEIRESS TAKES ALL, we were so excited to get this to our agent and editor that in two weeks, Emily outlined the entire heist and plot and Austin spun it into a fifty page sample we used to sell the book,” the pair said. “From there, we spent three months writing every chapter together. It wasn’t easy, but we knew the idea was special!”
According to the pair, one of the key steps in coming up with the story progression is thinking of what the unluckiest or most inconvenient thing to happen for a character at a specific moment. Their goal in doing this is to create the most dramatic, tense, or humorous moment.
“With HEIRESS, we wanted to create a criminal mastermind who looks like a vapid popular girl,” Wibberly and Siegemund-Broka said. “She’s exactly who no one expects — or suspects — and that’s where our story starts. From there, we never model our characters on real people, but we try to give each one of them one thing we recognize or admire in ourselves or people we know. That makes each one of them relatable and engaging.”
With the release of Heiress Takes All finished, and book tours wrapping up, the pair has started looking towards their next project. According to them, it’s hard to maintain interest story after story but they keep doing it because they love the challenge.
They want to leave aspiring new writers with this piece of advice: “Finish what they’re working on. Decide on, plan, and write a whole, completed work (whether a book, screenplay or poem) before getting distracted with a new idea. You’ll learn so much about craft and structure and what makes a truly enduring idea by forcing yourself to finish one — and once you’ve finished one, you’ll have a finished work. ”
Copies are available for purchase at Barnes & Nobles, Amazon, and locally at {pages} bookstore
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