Freevibe:  If you had to describe A Series of Unfortunate Events in three sentences, what would you say?

Lemony Snicket:  I would say, "What a strange request. Why have you asked me to do such a thing? If I describe the books as ‘miserable stories concerning three orphans and a terrible villain who pursues them wherever they go,’ would that satisfy your rather strange summarizational interests?”

FV: What is the story behind the name Lemony Snicket?

LS: Early in my writing career I used a false name while on the phone with an irritating person, to see if they would believe that such a name existed. Later on I thought it would be fun to use the name again, for more or less the same reasons.

FV: Are there any specific influences from your childhood or life that helped to create the dark and moody world of the Baudelaire orphans?

LS: I live in San Francisco, which is basically a dark and moody place, and the darkness and moodiness stuck with me all my life: I read dark and moody books when I was a child, I dated dark and moody people when I was a teenager, and now I do all sorts of dark and moody things as an adult.

FV: Can you tell us about how your writing career developed and then progressed to where it is now? Any advice you'd like to give to aspiring teen writers out there?

LS: The thing that you have to do to be a writer is to write a lot, to get into the habit of making sentences and paragraphs and pages that please you. I like to carry a notebook with me at all times and write down things which occur to me: things I see or hear around me that I find unusual or funny or sad or interesting. The more things I write down, the more things I think of to write down, and many of these things end up in the stories I write.

FV: What are your thoughts about the forthcoming Lemony Snicket film? Any early secrets you can share?

LS: I'm quite excited about the Snicket film, although it's not a film yet - we haven't filmed anything - just a script which I'm writing and rewriting. There are a few secrets, but if I shared them they wouldn't be a secret anymore, so instead I'll share a secret about someone I know, rather than about the movie: she's pregnant.

FV: Having a hit is one thing...creating a phenomenon is quite another. Is there a downside to the extreme popularity of A Series of Unfortunate Events or is success as sweet as they say it is?

LS: There is a downside to everything, but the positive aspects of what has happened with the Snicket books far outweigh the negative ones.

FV: Is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience?

LS: Yes, my recipe for stracciatella:
Simmer 6 cups of broth with 1 cup of red wine and the end cut of a piece of proscuitto for a few hours. Shred 2 cups of spinach and spread them in individual bowls, along with 1 cup of grated parmesan cheese and some black pepper. Remove the proscuitto from the broth, and bring it to a boil. Beat 2 eggs with 1/4 cup lemon juice, and add this mixture to the broth. Stir well. Pour the broth into the bowls of spinach and cheese. Add a bit more pepper if you want, and serve.