You\u2019ve heard of folks who are so close that they finish each other\u2019s sentences? Meet the Duluth writers who even speak collaboratively.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe realized pretty quickly my strengths are in code and plot \u2014 \u201d began Andy Bennett, on a phone call last month.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2014 and I\u2019m definitely more character-driven. I was always looking for the most realistic dialog, trying to keep the voices true,\u201c added Katy Helbacka, whose ability to pick up her husband\u2019s cues (and vice versa) was fueled by 10 years of doing improv together (Helbacka is the former artistic director of Renegade Theater, where they often directed each other).<\/p>\n
Together, the couple writes under pen name Jay Martel, which is a combination of their middle names. Starved for creative outlets in the pandemic, they dreamed up \u201cCodebreaker,\u201d a spy novel that is being pitched to young adults because its heroine is a teenager named Mia. But, with interactive puzzles left behind by her dad to help Mia solve her parents\u2019 murders, it seems likely to appeal to anyone who enjoyed the \u201cNational Treasure\u201d movies.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know how everyone has that movie where, if they\u2019re flipping through the channels and it\u2019s on, they stop and watch it? \u2018National Treasure\u2019 is the movie for Andy,\u201d said Helbacka.<\/p>\n
\u201cA seminal reading experience for me was \u2018The Da Vinci Code.\u2019 But, yeah, \u2018National Treasure,\u2019 I love,\u201d said Bennett. \u201cI co-founded an escape room [Solve Entertainment] in Duluth here for a while. I\u2019ve always been into those puzzle, adventuring things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Years ago, Bennett came up with the idea of a book filled with codes and ciphers but it languished while the couple pursued other projects, including a baby, Theo, who\u2019s now seven. (The three are jointly reading the \u201cHarry Potter\u201d books, which helped jettison the idea that YA titles are just for young adults.)<\/p>\n
\u201cKaty came in with the awesome idea of making \u2018Codebreaker\u2019 interactive and we decided, \u2018Let\u2019s just do this together,\u2019 and we ended up being so happy about it that we sent it along to my agent,\u201d said Bennett.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve heard of folks who are so close that they finish each other\u2019s sentences? Meet the Duluth writers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-12419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}