Happy Halloween! And What Better Time for a Pumpkin Princess Q&A with Steven Banbury?

It was pretty late in the year in 2024 when I discovered the middle grade novel The Pumpkin Princess and the Forever Night by Steven Banbury. You know how it is. You’re frantically reading through all the books at the end of the year, trying not to miss any potential award winners. Yet “award winners” are lofty affairs. They’re not usually sweet and spooky stories of girls getting adopted by creatures of the night. That’s why discovering this book felt like such a delight. Reading this book tapped into the exact same feelings I get when I watch The Nightmare Before Christmas. Same vibes. Same tone.

Now Halloween is upon us again, and lo and behold there is a sequel to this delightful tale! Don’t worry. If you or your kids missed the first one, you’ve plenty of time to catch up. In the meantime, the new book (The Pumpkin Princess and the Buried Castle, out now) very much picks up where the last one ended:

“It’s been nearly a year since Eve became the only living child to call the land of the undead her home and the Pumpkin King her father—except, Eve was no longer sure just how “living” she actually was, not after what transpired during the Forever Night.
 
Now, peculiar and magical things are starting to happen to Eve, and she suddenly finds herself slipping through objects like a ghost, or even able to light torches with a mere breath. Stranger still, she’s beginning to see a mysterious green-eyed shadow that no one else can. And when the shadow offers Eve a deal that would give someone closest to her the thing they always wanted, Eve is forced into a decision she never wished to make. Torn between friendship and responsibility, where either path could lead to disaster, Eve must make a choice.
 
One there is no going back from….”

Today, on this most perfect of days, I talk with Steven about the book:

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Betsy Bird: Mr. Banbury! Such a pleasure to get a chance to lob questions in your general direction today. I must confess to you that I was a very big fan of last year’s THE PUMPKIN PRINCESS AND THE FOREVER NIGHT. I want to get to the sequel and all that it entails, but let’s catch up folks on the first book and then we’ll talk about what comes next. So just to kick things off, cast your mind back in time and tell us where the first PUMPKIN PRINCESS book came from. How did you come to write this book? What’s its origin story?

Steven Banbury: Great starting question! And first off, thank you so much for letting me know you enjoyed the first Pumpkin Princess book! That means the world to hear. I’m really excited to talk with you more about it, so yeah, let’s dive in!

The first book, honestly, started somewhat with a dog walk, of all things. I had been walking our rescue-pup along a hedgerow, and as he was taking his time and sniffing literally everything, I was busy staring off into the hedge. The image of the Pumpkin King’s jack-o’-lantern-like face burning ominously in the brambles kind of came to me, and like that, I was itching to get to my computer. I rushed our dog back as fast as he could move (not very fast), sat down at my chair, and started writing.

What came out was, and still is, the first chapter of The Pumpkin Princess and the Forever Night. I started out with this orphan, Eve, trying to flee the most lonesome sort of upbringings, and in minutes, she came to life to me on the page. Fearless yet terrified of loss. Insightful and introverted. Inquisitive and shy. I loved her. Then I loved the moment that came next even more. She meets someone that shouldn’t exist: the fabled Pumpkin King. He offers to adopt her, and thus, the story truly starts. Eve is whisked away to find she’s the only living in a land full of undead. Not only that, but she has a father for the first time, and the Pumpkin King has a child for the first time.

I remember showing that first chapter to my wife. It was meant as more of a fun little writing exercise for myself, but by the time I finished, I didn’t want to stop. My wife agreed, and I dove back in. I knew I’d spend countless hours in the world, so I wanted it to be a place I’d never want to leave—wrapped in autumn and magic (and looking like my Pinterest board does every fall). At one point I even asked myself if fall was a theme park, what would the rides be? And then I made sure those elements were present. Always, though, I wanted the world to feel grounded and more real than fantasy. Almost like living in a tale from folklore, rather than in a magical fictional setting. Which is why it was important for me to root it all in a farming and a more gritty and earthy kind of magic, which felt wholly unique to me, and came from the Pumpkin King himself. To me, I always loved the idea of a Pumpkin King not so connected to Halloween, but one who is the king and ruler of harvests and fall. Then, pairing that gruff, farming Pumpkin King with Eve, was too interesting for me not to write.

BB: The heart of the first book was Eve’s relationship with her new father, The Pumpkin King. I consider it the middle grade equivalent of the grumpy/sunshine relationship motif, albeit through a nice father/daughter lens. It occurred to me as I read the book how rare it is to see this kind of adoptive father/child storyline. What was the impetus behind these two characters and their relationship with one another?

Steven: Without a doubt, this is what drove me to write the whole book. Yes, I loved the fog-wrapped setting and Eve’s new family of talking scarecrows, but there had to be something deeper at the core of the story for me. Something to balance that seesaw of whimsy and heart.

With autumn, there’s this feeling that begins to grow of family and longing, of love that’s sort of buried beneath the darkening days and turning weather. That is what Eve’s and the Pumpkin King’s relationship is to me. Them finding this normal father-daughter relationship, but in the most unnormal way possible.

I also think this is what sets it apart, in a way. So many middle grade books are about getting the children away from the adults so they can go off on dangerous adventures, whereas Pumpkin Princess was always about driving Eve towards her parent, toward finding a family. She of course grew up on her own, so she’s still headstrong and quick to run off on her own, but her father, the Pumpkin King, is always present, always there. He loves her more than anything, and I think seeing that in a book feels truly special. At least to me. That mix of excitement and familial love allows me to have my cake and eat it too, as well. I get these fun moments of Eve sneaking into a forest full of werewolves, but I also get to write a scene of Eve and the Pumpkin King hugging for the first time. It was so special for me.

BB: Aww. Yeah, for the readers too. So with the release of this sequel, I’m curious. Was this always intended to be a series? And going into this second book, did you already know precisely where you wanted to go with the storyline, or did it offer you some surprises along the way? 

Steven: You know, with the first book being a debut, and me not knowing whether or not it would actually even see the light of day, I was really nervous to hope for anything beyond just one book. Of course, I had hoped for more, and I had stacks of legal pads full of characters and locations, as well as plotlines and histories that never even made it into Book 1, but it was still always important to me that the first book stood entirely on its own, which I think it does.

Come time to write the sequel, though, I can assure you, all those legal pads of character backstories and new settings definitely started to come into play. From the start I had a pretty good sense for what was next for Eve and her relationship with the Pumpkin King and her friends, and I still do even after the sequel, but of course there are always surprises along the way whenever Eve or another character decides they know better than I do. (Those are usually good surprises, though).

BB: What’s your process when writing a novel for kids? Are you an outliner, who follows your own plans to the letter, or do you prefer a more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach where you simply write as it comes to you?

Steven: Haha, speaking of surprises. Yeah, I think it’s a combination of both. My background is in construction and engineering, so that side of me wants to plan everything down to the scene. However, some of my absolute favorite moments from both books came to me during the actual writing and weren’t planned at all. So I’ve essentially learned that for me, a hybrid approach has worked best. I like to plan, I need to see where things are going, but during the moment, I allow myself the freedom to let things play out organically. And when things divert from the plan, in my experience, it’s usually been for the best.

BB: Did writing a sequel offer any particular challenges that you didn’t have to handle with the first book, or did it come to you without a hitch?

Steven: When it came to writing the sequel, the most nuanced part for me was deciding how to best recap Book 1. You’re dealing with readers that have possibly not touched the first book in a year, while also writing for readers that will go straight from Book 1 to Book 2 within the same week. But getting both up to speed and right back in the thick of it needs to feel natural, while also getting a lot done at the same time. Especially when you consider how much really happens to Eve in Book 1. I obviously won’t say what all happens to her, but it’s a fair amount to catch a reader up on. Thankfully, my editors at LBYR were instrumental in helping me thread the needle on this, and I’m really happy with the onboarding into Book 2.

BB: Finally, what else are you working on these days? More Pumpkin Princess fare, or something entirely different?

Steven: Pumpkin Princess is so near and dear to my heart, that I think a good portion of my brain is always working on that in the background, to be honest. That being said, though, I did take a small break from it this year to dive deep into another project. I’m not quite ready to talk about it just yet, but I’m hoping to be soon! So stay tuned!

And if you want to keep track of me, Eve, and the Pumpkin King, we’d absolutely love that! You can always check me out on my website at www.stevenbanbury.com, and subscribe to my newsletter there, or also follow me on Instagram: @stevenbanbury.

Otherwise, thank you SO much for these questions, Betsy. I loved talking with you about everything Pumpkin Princess! I hope you have a happy fall!

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Big thanks to Steven for taking the time to talk to me today and thanks too to Victoria Stapleton and the whole team at Little, Brown for putting this together! As I mentioned before, The Pumpkin Princess and the Buried Castle, as well as its predecessor, are both out right now. What better way to spend the day than seeking them out, eh?

Finally, if you want to see something cute, check out these alternate covers to the first Pumpkin Princess book on Matt Rockefeller’s Instagram account here.

Filed under: Interviews