“I want it to be ridiculous but also sincere.” Erin Bow Discusses Witchward Bound and Reveals Its Cover

So you’ve written a Newbery Honor winning title.

Bit daunting that. I’ve known more than one author to find themselves stymied in their own writing when the shadow of a large win looms over their future projects and prospects. It’s part of the reason I watch writers’ follow-up novels to the Newbery with such interest. Whether you win the Award outright or an Honor, the direction your next book takes says a lot about you as an author.

Particularly if your next book is described by your publisher as, “Homeward Bound meets The Odyssey with the charm of Studio Ghibli.” No small praise, that. But then, no minor author is Erin Bow.

I’m sure a fair number of you were as big a fans of her Newbery Honor winning title Simon Sort of Says. To this day I still think of the squirrel running amok in the church with fondness. Now that book was a heady, not to mention gutsy, mix of humor and tragedy in equal measures, set in a very realistic, real world. It stands to reason, then, that her next book would be just a bit… different. A little more animalian. A little more magic.

Witchward Bound is out on shelves everywhere September 1st. With art from Kelly Murphy, the story concerns a witch, a cat, and a raven. But I’ll let the publisher describe it properly to you in their own way:

“Once upon a time there was a pair of witch’s helpers: a cat named Butter and a raven named Owl. The cat knows he is destined to be a great hero—just ask him. The raven wouldn’t recognize destiny if she flew into it beak-first. They do not get along.

But then their witch vanishes, and Butter and Owl must quest to find her. To reunite their family, they’ll have to outwit sirens and cyclops, gods and ghosts—and hardest of all, they’ll have to learn to work together. 

Humorous and heartfelt, the story of Butter and Owl’s first adventure shows what it means to be a great hero—and what it takes to be a good friend. With enchanting illustrations by New York Times best-seller Kelly Murphy and sparkling words written by beloved, Newbery Honor–winning author Erin Bow, this tale is a classic in the making—a whimsical, witty, and warm story worthy of reading again and again.”

Today we perform a cover reveal and a Q&A. Because this is, to put it mildly, not usually where a Newbery Honoree goes after their win.

I. Had. Questions.

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Betsy Bird: Erin! My, but it’s good to see you, and to see a new book from you as well. You had any number of directions you could have gone, but WITCHWARD BOUND is a cozier title than one might have expected. I think we’re all gonna need some context here. Where on earth did this great adventure story come from?

Erin Bow: To be honest, it wasn’t what I meant to write. 

I was working on something entirely different – a big ambitious SFF novel with a non-linear structure, a la Station Eleven.  But I was also struggling with Long COVID, and mourning my mom, and I just couldn’t make the words go.  I decided to put the complex novel away and write something just to delight myself.  I didn’t even intend it for publication.  I just sent it to a few friends, chapter by chapter, as a serial adventure. 

As for where it comes from – everywhere, nowhere, who knows?  Terry Pratchett’s witch books  – the art of Meryl McMaster, which conjured the witch for me – a decade-ago writing prompt on Tumblr about two squabbling familars – my emotional support cat, Cygnus, whose snoring inspired Butter’s – a summer spent housesitting among the ravens on Pender Island.  They say you can befriend ravens with peanuts, but being unable to manage the raven-proof garbage cans will also work. 

The thing that really made it work was connecting Butter and Owl’s road trip to Odyssey, and though I’m definitely a not-so-closet classics fan, I have no idea how I made that leap.  

BB: Yes, I finally got clued onto the Odyssey factor when Circe showed up. So some say that after a Newbery win, it can be difficult working on any kind of a follow-up afterwards. Was that something you struggled with yourself, or not so much? 

Erin: Sure, because no pressure, right?  Maybe that was part of the reason I had to put my SFF novel down, or the reason my more Simon-like middle grade has been slow to start.  But honestly, the first Butter and Owl book was as effortless and magical as any book I’ve ever written. 

BB: And it feels that way? Of course, tonally, the book feels very different from SIMON SORT OF SAYS. Are there books for kids that served as influences, either directly or indirectly, as you wrote this? On a related note, anything you read as a kid yourself that has stuck with you and that you hope this book emulates? 

Erin: This is my E.B. White book, for sure.  Charlotte’s Web is the one everyone loves, but my favorite as a kid was Trumpet of the Swan.  It’s about a trumpeter swan named Louis, who was born mute.  His dad steals a trumpet by breaking into a music shop in in Billings, Montana.  The trumpet gives Louis a voice, but his father’s crime also weighs heavy on him, and he spends the rest of the story earning money to pay back the music store owner.  It’s absurd – imagine a swan staying at the Ritz, ordering watercress sandwiches off the take-out menu — but it’s never nihilistic.

Trumpet of the Swan is also where I learned about the delights of allusion, and how art connects to other art.  I vividly remember my dad explaining to me why it was funny that the trumpeter swan was named Louis, which lead to him introducing me to his beloved jazz. 

I want all that for Witchward Bound.  I want it to be ridiculous but also sincere.  I want it to be connected to the greater world story, and I want some kid to wander into the Odyssey the way I wandered into Louis Armstrong.  Most of all – this is my secret huge ambition so don’t tell – I want it to be on the shelves in fifty years, where someone who loved it as a child can return to it and find it still delightful, but maybe deeper than they realized. 

BB: The holy grail. Process nerd that I am, tell us a little bit about the writing and editing. How much does this final result resemble your first draft? And did you have to lose anything along the way that was painful to cut? 

Erin: I’m usually a meandering sort of writer. I can’t outline, so my first drafts have got all these oxbows and snags and silted up places.  This makes revision an intense process for me, with a lot of cutting and clearing and dredging.  And, yes, I usually do have to take out something wonderful but wrong for the book. 

Witchward Bound was different, though, maybe because it’s more strongly episodic than anything else I’ve done.  Once the story gets going, each chapter is its own adventure, and putting the draft together for publication was more like putting beads on a string than mapping a river.  Even when one chapter misfired and had to be ripped out and replaced, the revision was self-contained.  The result was a final draft that looked much more like its first draft than my final drafts usually do. 

BB: Hard hitting question alert! In a world of Butters and Owls, how do you identify? Are you more Butter or are you more Owl? 

Erin: I am a Butter, alas. 

I discovered in writing book two of Butter and Owl’s adventures that Butter’s point of view comes naturally to me.  Owl’s voice comes out much more in book two, and finding it was a struggle.  As I told my editor: If you had telepathy it would be pointless to use it on Owl, because what she’s thinking is exactly what she’s saying.  She is clear Owl all the way down.

Butter, on the other hand, has an image of himself that he knows he doesn’t live up to, and sense of how the world should be that the world likewise fails to deliver.  There’s turmoil and contradiction and longing there, and all of that seems to be me-ish.

BB: Your words happened to get paired with the art of the incomparable Kelly Murphy. Were you aware of Kelly’s work prior to this tale? How do you feel about the final product? 

Erin: I don’t know if Kelly knows this, but I’m the one who put her name in the mix for this project.  I remembered her illustrations for Peck’s Secrets at Sea.  Of course, that wasn’t the end of it: Authors don’t choose their illustrators, and I know the Disney design department considered several amazing talents.  I am so happy they ultimately landed on Murphy.  I grinned from ear to ear when I saw the first character sketches of my dear big Butter, gasped in awe when I saw the illustration of Owl and Butter meeting the god of the wind, and teared up at the happy ending illustration.  

I haven’t seen the actual book yet, and I cannot wait!

BB: Finally, what else are you working on these days? What’s next for you?

Erin: For a start, more Butter and Owl!  The Witchward Bound is a riff on the Odyssey, of course.  The second book, Bay of Wolves, is a riff on Beowulf, and it’s almost done.  

In the original epic, the King of the Danes builds a feasting hall next to a body of water that’s literally called the Lake of Monsters.  The noise of the feast bothers the monsters, and they attack the hall, and then everybody’s day is ruined.  We’re obviously meant to side with the Danes, but honestly the monsters have a point. 

Bay of Wolves is likewise a story about neighbours and newcomers and noise complaints.  There’s a wolf pack, a wizard, more alliteration than you’d expect from a children’s book, and a monster-shaped surprise.  I’m thrilled with it. 

Apart from that, there’s an Arthurian Butter and Owl book just getting started. I just wrote a chapter where they lose their small fire-spirit friend down a well, and must rescue him without spilling the well water, so naturally they need to find a …wait for it …. holey pail.

There’s also a more Simon-ish middle grade about a town that’s overrun by crows, a new poetry project, that SFF novel that I put down once upon a time, and several more. 

I really do seem to have a Butter-sized sense of ambition – I want to be a great writing hero, and put a couple dozen more books into the world.

BB: As long as you keep filling your books with ravens and crows, I’d say you’re on the right path.

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Magnificent gobs of thanks to Erin for her thoughts and opinions on her work, writing, and books. Witchward Bound is, as I mentioned before, out on shelves everywhere September 1st so please be so good as to pre-order it now.

And here, my darlings, is the cover itself:

Thanks too to Crystal McCoy and the team at Disney Books for this fun talk and reveal!

Filed under: Cover Reveal, Interviews