We chat with New York Times bestselling Dungeons & Dragons expert Michael Witwer about his debut epic middle grade fantasy, Vivian Van Tassel and the Secret of Midnight Lake!
Hi, Mike! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Sure! I’m a marketing professional by day and a parent, husband and writer by night (and early mornings). I grew up in the Chicago area during the era of wood-panelled technology (our old TV and VCR come to mind) and I love all things gaming from tabletop role-playing games and board games to arcade games and console video games. I stayed in Chicago through my undergrad at Northwestern and grad school at University of Chicago (only impractical majors for me!) and still live there today with my wife, two daughters, and two sons.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Probably a few different things. First, my dad was a great storyteller and had a knack for making up stories on the fly (usually ghost stories) about landmarks or locations we’d walk by or pass in the car. He also loved reading us books from his leather-bound reader’s digest collection—stories by Edgar Allan Poe and the like. He could also bust out fun poetry like Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. Next, I grew up playing lots of D&D and other role-playing games with my older brother, actor Sam Witwer. He really knows how to weave a story and bring you into it—the co-operative storytelling aspects of RPGs are very powerful! Finally, I was lucky enough to have many elementary teachers who really loved books, and nurtured the skills of reading and writing.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
The first book I remember reading was the Moby-Dick Coloring Book (at four words per page with giant, colorable illustrations, I’m pretty sure it was not the original Melville😊). I remember reading it for a kindergarten class reading competition where the leader board was determined by how many pages you read—this one had like 80 pages, so good value to it as far as the competition was concerned. I got third place in the overall competition, but I still suspect that the winner cheated (I guess I shouldn’t complain as I included a coloring book in my tally).
The One that inspired me to become an author—that’s a tough question, but one book does come to mind: I remember really loving Jack London’s Call of the Wild—I just remember it had this quiet elegance to it.
And the one I can’t stop thinking about: well, I guess it’s the three books I have coming out this fall—I tend to obsess about them until they finally hit the market. More on that later.
Your latest novel, Vivian Van Tassel and the Secret of Midnight Lake, is out August 29th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Heartache…mystery…adventure…bravery…forgiveness
What can readers expect?
I hope something super fun and delightfully strange. There’s nothing novel about, say, having monsters in a middle grade fantasy story, but I really tried to focus on the reality of the situation. What would it be like to really see a monster right out of a novel or game book you’ve been reading? Paralyzing no doubt. What if you felt like you were the only one who could stop the threat? It would be quite a burden and create lots of conflict. I try to focus on those aspects for grounding while adding fun and levity with the characters and story elements.
Where did the inspiration for Vivian Van Tassel and the Secret of Midnight Lake come from?
I came up with the idea when I was writing my first book Empire of Imagination (Bloomsbury 2015), which is a biography of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax. Gygax grew up in a small Wisconsin resort town called Lake Geneva. When he was a kid, he would frequently explore the ruins of an abandoned sanitarium, and I discovered during my research that during the 19th century there were several sanitariums founded around this little Wisconsin town. I thought that was an interesting backdrop for the town that would become the birthplace of D&D and that’s what led me to some of the main ideas around Vivian Van Tassel and the Secret of Midnight Lake.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
All of them! But maybe some fun ones that stand out are the sequences where the “Stairwell Misfits” play their role-playing game, Beasts & Battlements, together. Those scenes are inspired by many of my real-world experiences playing role-playing games with friends.
This is your middle grade debut! Did anything in particular lead to the switch?
Good question! All of my previous books would likely fall into the category of narrative non-fiction or creative non-fiction, so fiction didn’t feel like a big stretch—it’s all storytelling! Along those lines, I think I just love telling a good story, which can be done with real or imaginary events. That is to say, truth and facts are not a constraint against telling a good story—they can be your most powerful allies, especially when the “truth is stranger than fiction.”
What’s next for you?
Hopefully another Vivian Van Tassel book! In the interim, I’ve got two more books coming out this year: Lore & Legends (a D&D visual history of the past 10 years) and Heroes’ Feast: Flavors of the Multiverse (a second D&D cookbook, which has an upcoming cooking show based on it that I’m on).
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Of course! Or maybe just as good, some author recommendations. I’ve been reading a ton of middle grade/YA fantasy over the past few years as I was preparing for writing Vivian Van Tassel, and I’ve been super impressed and inspired by the work of Brandon Mull, Sarah J. Maas, and Shannon Messenger—they are incredibly talented storytellers. There are, of course, so many others I love to read, but those three stood out relative to my work on this book.
You can find Michael at his website and on Twitter at @mikewitwer. Be sure to check out his other books too—Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana, Heroes’ Feast (Dungeons & Dragons), and Dungeons and Dragons The Legend of Drizzt Visual Dictionary.
