We chat with author Premee Mohamed about From the Library of Jurgen Leitner, which is a brand new standalone gothic horror novel based on the internet sensation and popular podcast drama The Magnus Archives, perfect for fans of Welcome to Night Vale.
Hi, Premee! Welcome back! What have you been up to since we last spoke in 2024 for the release of The Butcher of the Forest?
A ton of short fiction, a few more awards, some exciting festivals and conferences, and more books! Shortly after The Butcher of the Forest came out, my novel The Siege of Burning Grass was published by Solaris, and 2024 also saw the publication of novellas We Speak Through the Mountain (ECW Press) and The Rider, the Ride, the Rich Man’s Wife (PS Publishing). In 2025, ECW Press also published The First Thousand Trees, which ended my The Annual Migration of Clouds Trilogy (sadness!) and Psychopomp released my mini-collection One Message Remains. Finally, this year, Tor released my novel Wickhills in September 2026. You may be wondering whether I ever sleep and the answer is “Sometimes” or more accurately “When I’m not putting blobs of concealer on my giant under-eye circles.”
Your latest novel, From the Library of Jurgen Leitner, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
“Keep them off the streets!”
What can readers expect?
I hope everybody is ready for a deeper dive than you’re allowed to get from audio drama! The great thing about novels is that you can have more interiority, extended journeys into the minds and motivations of characters, a better understanding of why people are doing what they’re doing. This can also be the most annoying thing about novels, but anyway. Readers can expect a difficult mystery to unpick (as Hugh does) and some hard decisions on how to get rid of certain obstacles (as Sebastian does), and some gore, chases, impossible bargains, and the slow realization that the things going ‘bump’ in the night have been watching us… all… along.
Where did the inspiration for From the Library of Jurgen Leitner come from?
Basically from the episode of The Magnus Archives where Jurgen Leitner seems to reappear out of nowhere under the Institute! Again, fans of the show know all this already, but there’s a period where Leitner seems to ‘disappear’ and it coincides with what some other people refer to as ‘the fall of the library.’ But the thing is, despite him briefly describing that gruesome last day, there’s no why or how. There might have been a thousand ways to do it – and the motivation to do so is, well, I think it falls on a spectrum that we also explore a little bit in the novel. But there were no answers. So I thought: Well, what if it was an inside job? And we went on from there.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I really enjoyed the dual timeline actually! I knew I had to watch my step with existing Magnus characters – and the novel isn’t focused on the main cast anyway, so we have a few scenes with one pre-existing character who was dealing with artifacts and rare books in the early 90s, but everybody else is basically made up except for Leitner. So, given the freedom of total randos, I enjoyed Sebastian a lot – I think that first scene is my favourite, where all he’s trying to do is lie about buying a rare book in Switzerland and nobody is making it easy on him.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Definitely the timeline was a challenge! I had everything in a spreadsheet and as I went on the spreadsheet just got more and more complicated, and I even found myself thinking “Oh my God let’s just pull these apart and write it as a single timeline,” but by that point the story only worked with two, so I basically just ended up giving my editor a link so it so we could both update it in real-time as we worked through the edits.
What are some of the key lessons you’ve learned since you published your debut novel?
I think the main one is that authors are not in control of a lot of things regarding their book (the number of people out there who are like “Well how come my town isn’t included in your distribution area” in my email is legion though), and the best thing to focus on, if not the only thing, is the writing itself.
With the spooky season well underway, what are some fellow horror novels you’d recommend?
You cannot go wrong with anything by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, but I especially want to shout out Mexican Gothic, which – man, ew, yikes, amazing. Definitely Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum, incredible body horror, not for the faint of heart, and actually in that same vein both The Death of Jane Lawrence and The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling. Also, this isn’t a novel but I have to mention Wheetago War: Roth, by Richard Van Camp and Christopher Shy, which is a graphic novel, and the story and the artwork absolutely scared my pants off.
What’s next for you?
Several things that haven’t been announced, so I will simply mention that I’m the instructor for Clarion West’s next novel-writing cohort starting in 2027 (everyone please apply!), and I have short stories in The Book of the Dead, Unearthed, and Revolution in the Heart anthologies that are available for purchase now!
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up soon? Any you’ve got your eye on already for 2027?
Very excited for Karen Lord’s latest, The Angel at the Gates, as well as a few others from friends – super impatient for Jared Pechaček’s upcoming Where Fire Reigns and Andrew Sullivan’s Earth Filled With Blood (also, that title?) and of course Vajra Chandrasekera’s third novel Hero Come Home.
