Stefan Bachmann's Blog, page 3

Moon Ghosts and Labyrinth Ghosts - Art round-up #5

Hello friends. It’s been a busy month! New book, 2nd pass pages for the non-fiction, article-writing and school visit prep and Autillus things, and being stressed about needing to get a driver’s license while also doing nothing in order to get said driver’s license. And oddly all of that has translated to more drawing, since it’s a lovely antidote to the busy-ness, and the more there is to do, the nicer it is to take an hour in the evening to draw a ghost. So here is an entire host of new ghostly art. I will do a shop update soon, too.

And I’m on INPRNT now, which feels very fancy, because you get voted on by other artists. Hurray! If you are in the market for framed prints of ghosts here you go.

Ghost in a Tub

Labyrinth Ghost

Artist Ghost

Ghost in the Dark

Crossing

DIE LETZTEN HEXEN VON BLACKBIRD CASTLE - out now!

The German translation of Cinders and Sparrows, called Die Letzten Hexen von Blackbird Castle, is out in the world! If you have been waiting for it, you can now get it wherever books are sold. Thank you very much to the translator, Stefanie Schäfer, the audiobook narrator, Henriette Schreurs, and the art director and artist for that gorgeous cover (it’s shiny in person) and everyone at Diogenes for their work. I hope you like it!

Buy the book Listen to the Audiobook

Here are some illustrations I did for the publisher:

Zita, Teensy, and the Butcher of Beydun

An unexpected encounter

Zita in the Burnt Wing. (Spot the ghost and the mushroom people.)

Papercut Ghosts - Art Round-up #4

Daily Affirmations

I’ve been trying some different things lately, very cautiously as the ghosts pictures like the one above are by far the most popular on instagram and in the shop. So I will begin with the more regular ghost art to woo you, followed by the papercut-effect-things, which I loved doing, and want to keep practicing.

In book news, things have been very busy. We just handed off first-pass pages for Clandestine, the adult non-fiction (which may get a title change, stay tuned!), and got to see the gorgeous layouts and pictures the art director has chosen for it. I think it’s going to be a beautiful book. I’m also busily at work on an adult historical fantasy which I’m very excited about. And Release the Wolves is still waiting in the wings at HarperCollins, and I’ve been assured the edit letter is coming soon. My guess is it will be out sometime in 2024.

Anyway, art!

Ghost in a Park

Ghosts in Jar

Ghost in a Keyhole

And now for the digital papercut experiments:

Nightfall

Papercut

Checkerboard Ghost

Red witch, pale wood

Upcoming Appearances - DIE LETZTEN HEXEN VON BLACKBIRD CASTLE

Friends! DIE LETZTEN HEXEN VON BLACKBIRD CASTLE will be out in German-speaking lands on April 26th, 2023. And there will be readings! I will be doing a special preliminary reading very, very soon at the Cologne literature festival, a full month before the book comes out. Also, the Solothurner Literaturtage, a lovely book festival in Switzerland that I read at back in 2014, just announced their dates as well. I will be doing multiple readings there throughout the festival week in May.

March 7th - lit.Cologne

May 15th - 20th - Solothurner Literaturtage

More appearances are in the pipeline, and I will post the dates here or on social media as I get them. I look forward to seeing some of you there! 🌙

Travelling Ghosts - Art Round-up #3

Things have been wildly busy of late. I got back from Mexico a week ago and then promptly went to Switzerland for teaching, and a spate of meetings, and a brief visit to the Kunsthaus to look at a carrot lying on a concrete chaise longue, and then, especially fun, a board meeting of the Swiss association of children’s authors and illustrators, where we sorted out our nominees for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

This association has been super interesting to be a part of. I’ve loved getting to know the Swiss writing scene, meeting other authors, and getting a glimpse of how the book world works in the country where I spent most of my life. (And we’ve got lots of exciting projects coming up, so in case you aren’t aware of Autillus, here is their website. Follow their social media, subscribe to their newsletter, and keep up to date with all the many interesting things that Swiss children’s and young adult authors and illustrators are doing.)

All that to say, I’m back in Germany now, in my cozy home, and I never want to leave again.

One of the bright sides of all the travel, though, has been a lot of time spent in airports and trains, and a lot of time to drawwww. So here are my newest ghosts. As usual, all are available in my . I hope you enjoy them!

A Startle

Ghost on a Bed of Pillows

The Ghost at the Bottom of the Sea

Bomb Ghost (This one inspired by the fact that my house is very old, in a very old town, and my neighbourhood regularly has to be evacuated because they’ve found more unexploded WWII bombs while digging foundations or doing roadwork.)

Balloon Ghost

Next up: appearance schedule for Die Letzten Hexen von Blackbird Castle. I will probably send that out in early March, but since this one is already set in stone, a reminder that I’ll be doing a reading at lit.Cologne on March 7th!

Now Open: The Ghostie Emporium

So, way back in 2020 I said on twitter that I was going to start drawing more. In 2022, I started doing digital art and posting the results. Around three months ago, I figured out my theme for instagram (black and white checkerboard grid and lots of ghosts). People started following more and messaging more. The midnight reading ghost got almost 900 likes. Several people said they wanted to get my pictures as tattoos (?!?).

All this to say, I’m very grateful people are liking the art, and I’m especially thrilled that people are asking for ways to get it in tangible forms. I looked into how I could oblige, and one month of obsessive purtling later, here we are! I have a little art shop over on Redbubble, which is a print-on-demand place where you can apply your art to an alarming array of items, from art prints to mugs to totes to mysterious acrylic blocks.

So: this cozy emporium of ghosts and books and trees is now open. I hope you find things you like. I will be updating it regularly, so if you see something on Instagram that strikes your fancy, chances are it will be up in the shop, too. Below are my favorite categories:

There a lots of other categories, water bottles, and coasters, and pillows, and postcards. Here is an overview:

Gallery

This was all really fun and satisfying to set up. I hope you guys love it, too. And if you don’t, or you buy something and aren’t happy with the printing or how it turned out, do let me know, and I’ll get it replaced. Happy shopping!

Happy New Year!

Gardening Ghost

Happy New Year, dear people! I hope you’re all hale and healthy, and doing things that delight you. I’m in Mexico right now, in a city in the mountains, and I thought I would do a brief re-cap of 2022, and show off two new pictures, and then run away again and do a bigger post next week.

2022 was a really happy, busy year for me. I started drafting my first novel for adults, finished a non-fiction book with my friend April Genevieve Tucholke (out this year from Workman/Hachette, whee!), outlined another book with April and started drafting it, wrote some picture books, started drawing more, started teaching creative writing, joined the board of the Swiss association of children’s authors and illustrators, opened a little art shop (more on this soon!), travelled to Estonia, Latvia, the US, and to Mexico, twice, and got to share time with lots of lovely friends and good people.

2023 is shaping up to be happy and busy, too. DIE LETZTEN HEXEN VON BLACKBIRD CASTLE is out in just a few months in German-speaking lands, there will be readings and events (more on that soon, too), teaching resumes in a few weeks, and then the non-fiction is out later in the year in the US.

I’m excited for all of it.

To everyone reading this, newsletter subscribers and blog readers, thanks for being here, for reading my books and encouraging the art and following along on this adventure. I wish you the very best new year.

A House for a Ghost

Ghosts, Moons, and a Chalk Checkerboard - Art Round-up #2

A Bookish Ghost

I got very much into this chalky textured brush on Procreate this last month and so of course decided my entire aesthetic should revolve around it, and also that I want my instagram to look like a checkerboard, so let me present to you my gallery of black and white chalky pictures, most - but not all - including ghosts and moons.

(And here they are as actual uploads, because I’m not sure RSS and email subscribers will be able to view the gallery above.)

The Dagger and the Light

Moon Mask

Eldritch Eye

The Tree of Concerned Ghosts

Two Happy Ghosts

A horrible thing from the depths of the woods.

Talking to the Moon

Happy Little Moon Ghost

This was one of the first chalky ones I did, and it’s a bit rough, but I will include it anyway.

I played around a lot with monograms few weeks ago, too, and made a bunch for friends and followers on instagram, just for fun. This one is for my name, and it looks a bit too much like “SD” rather than “SB” but I like how the dark moon looks.

And that’s that! I think in the next newsletter I will share one more rather fun art-related thing that I’ve been working on, and then it will be the holidays, and 2023 will be upon us, and DIE LETZTEN HEXEN VON BLACKBIRD CASTLE will be coming out, and there will be some events, then the non-fiction will be coming out in the US.

Also, a quick update on Release the Wolves, because I know it was supposed to come out first this fall and then in the Spring. HarperCollins, my publisher, is on strike right now! That, coupled with the still ongoing COVID backlog and supply chain problems, means more book delays. I’ve seen gorgeous early cover concepts (by one of my favorite artists ever, I cannot wait to show you guys) but I haven’t gotten the edits yet, and I’m guessing it may be Fall of ‘23 or even ‘24 before it hits shelves. But let’s see! I’m still holding on to hope that it will see the light of day next year. It’s one of my favorite books I’ve written atmosphere-wise, and I’m very excited for people to read it.

Holiday eBook Sale - CINDERS AND SPARROWS is 1.99!

Just a quick heads-up, dear US readers: if you haven’t read Cinders and Sparrows, HarperCollins is doing a special 1.99 eBook deal for the entire month of December, across all platforms, from indies to iBooks to Barnes & Noble. So, perfect timing for Christmas and the Holidays and gift-giving and all that. Happy reading!

(Also, do you like my grasping branches and incredibly anatomically-incorrect crow graphic? Me too. I could draw grasping branches all day. And anatomically incorrect crows.)

Shop the eBook

EXTRAMUNDANA 2.0

EXTRAMUNDANA, Switzerland's first national writing group for fantasy writers, is headed into its second year! Last spring, a class of supremely talented up-and-coming writers converged on a 400-year-old house in the center Zürich, looking to stretch their creative muscles, network with other writers, and pick up tips and tricks from authors Bettina Belmont, Jyoti Guptara, and me. They worked through fun prompts, learned how to create a compelling pitch, practiced worldbuilding and character building, did a retreat in the wildly picturesque mountains of Appenzell, and all of it culminated in a wonderful performance of their work at "Zürich Liest" a few weeks ago.

Thanks to the organization and enthusiasm from the Junges Literaturlabor Zürich as well as the generous support of the Carl Spitteler and Otto and Ruth Frei foundations, the application process for next year is now open. For information on how to apply for 2023's group, head over to the website of the Junges Literaturlabor, or check out the flyer. The deadline for application is January 9th.

On a less informercial-y note, this project has been super fun and rewarding for me. I never really connected much with the Swiss writing scene when I was younger, and then I moved to Berlin and found writers there, and… continued not connecting with the Swiss writing scene. So 2022 has been the year of catching up on that, and it’s been lovely to meet these writers and work with them. I’m excited to meet 2023’s group! See you next year!