Interview: Stefan Bachmann (The Peculiar)
As part of a book tour hosted by HarperCollins, I am interviewing Stefan Bachmann today! To find out more about the tour and other blogs participating, visit Stefan’s blog.
Hi Stefan, welcome to Nyx Book Reviews. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi! Sure. My name’s Stefan Bachmann, I’m 19, I live in Zürich, Switzerland, I’m a classical music student, I play a bunch of instruments and read a bunch of books, and a few years ago I wrote one called The Peculiar, which is kind of a creepy Victorian steampunk fantasy with faeries. It came out September 18th, 2012, from Greenwillow/HarperCollins.
Your debut novel The Peculiar has been published about half a year ago. How has it been like to be a published author?
It’s been awesome. And busy. But more awesome than busy. I got to go on tour last October, got to meet readers and librarians and booksellers all over the US, got to meet my genius editor and my hilarious agent and a bunch of people at HarperCollins in New York, got to go to Comic Con. It’s just been a really great experience.
The Peculiar is a mix between fantasy, steampunk and old folklore. Where do you find inspiration?
Movies, books, real life. . . It’s hard for me to pin-point one thing, because inspiration often comes from really random places. For this book, I think a lot of the inspiration came from a mixture of steampunk Disney movies and Grimm fairytales and maybe a pinch of Hayao Miyazaki and Neil Gaiman, and then some penny dreadful murder mysteries, and some Dickens. Yeah.
Do you still have time to read yourself? If so, what have you lately read that you enjoyed?
I do! Every morning on the train to school. 🙂 I’ve read a lot of great books recently. Two incredibly-written (and scary) ones are The Feathered Man by Jeremy de Quindt, Long Lankin by Lindsay Barraclough. Love those.
Do you have any advice for other young aspiring novelists?
Write a lot and read a lot. I know, it’s what everyone says, but it really is 90% of what you’ll have to do to get published. The other 10% is probably luck and timing and innate talent and some modicum of self-control and perseverance and all those other things. Also, write about things you love and don’t listen to people who say you can’t. You can do whatever you put your mind to.
The sequel to The Peculiar, The Whatnot is scheduled for release this year. Can you give us a little hint of what will happen to Bartholomew and Mr. Jelliby next?
Yesss. I’m pretty excited about The Whatnot. It’s a bigger book than The Peculiar, and there’s a war going on, and we get to see the inside of the faery world, and there’s much creepiness and adventuring. I can’t really say what happens to Bartholomew, because it’s a surprise, or what happens to Mr. Jelliby because. . . just because, but it’s probably not what you were expecting.
Thank you for answering my questions! (:
Thanks for asking them! 😉 And for having me on the blog!!
To enter the wonderful giveaway provided by Stefan, simply fill in the Rafflecopter giveaway below. You can find my review of The Peculiar here.
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