Biography of Ransom Riggs

Ransom Riggs was born on a farm in Maryland in 1980. He grew up in Englewood, Florida and attended Pine View School for the Gifted before receiving a degree in English literature from Kenyon College and one in film from the University of Southern California. He is best known for writing the young adult novel Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which resulted from collecting old photographs.

Riggs began writing stories, taking photographs, and making movies when he was young, and continued cultivating these interests into adulthood. After graduating from the University of Southern California with a film degree, he attempted to enter the film festival circuit and get discovered. However, this dream did not pan out, and he instead spent much of his time writing scripts or blogging for Mental Floss. This blogging led to a job writing a book called The Sherlock Holmes Handbook that went along with the 2009 Sherlock Holmes film.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was his second project, which came about after he approached his publisher Quirk Books with some photographs to turn into a narrative. In 2012 he published another book inspired by old photographs, called Talking Pictures, and eventually followed Miss Peregrine's Home with two sequels: Hollow City in 2014 and Library of Souls in 2015.