Author Spotlight: Philip Stead — A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic X: Or, Like Lightning in an Umbrella Storm

We’re thrilled to have New York Times bestselling author Philip Stead on here today to talk about his newest release, A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic X: Or, Like Lightning in an Umbrella Storm. Whew! What a long title, but it definitely intrigued me, and I couldn’t wait to read it. Once I did, I understood why it received 6 starred reviews. Yes, 6! It was one of the most interesting books I’ve read recently. I don’t want to give too much away, but I especially liked that the book didn’t start with Chapter 1.

Hi, Philip, thank you so much for being here with us and for answering our endless list of questions. Perhaps the interview felt as long as your clever book title.

Did you have any childhood dreams for when you became an adult? If so, did they come true? My big childhood dream was that I would grow up to be an artist. In high school my dream became a little more specific—I hoped to become a children’s book illustrator. So, yes, I am happy to report that my dreams came true!

What books influenced you most as a child? There are three books that really stand out in my memories. The first is The BFG, by Roald Dahl. I read and reread this book so many times that it literally fell apart. I still have the loose pages here in my studio. Next is The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin. It was so clever and fun, and it made me feel clever too. I had a similar experience with The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. Juster’s rhythms live permanently in my brain somewhere, informing almost everything I write.

Well-loved books that have fallen apart are my favorite possessions, so I’m glad you still have The BFG. And you’ve captured Juster’s rhythms well in your own work, and even included a tollbooth. 😊

Keeping with the theme of your childhood, what was your biggest fear when you were young? Did you get over it?

I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well at things as child. At the same time, for some reason, I was terrified to ever ask for help. These days I still put a lot of pressure on myself. I am getting marginally better, though, at asking for help when I need it.

Would you be willing to share an embarrassing grade school moment?

I was a poor reader when I began first grade. I remember being placed in the bottom group at the start of the year, a small but memorable embarrassment in itself. Worse, in my classroom, students who consistently misspelled or misread a word were made to wear that word pinned to their chest throughout the day. I will never forget being sent out to recess wearing a big sheet of paper that said THE and THEY.

That would be embarrassing.☹ Let’s change the subject to something more positive.

Do you have any memories of liking art and writing? Almost all of my early memories are about art making. I loved to draw and paint. It was a huge part of my identity from basically age three onward. When I was around eight years old, I was given a book about Canadian wildlife artist Robert Bateman. I became obsessed for several years with trying to recreate his images. Writing was not much a part of my childhood. It really didn’t become a thing for me until college when I began to dabble with creative writing courses. To this day I still tend to bristle when I’m introduced as a writer. I’ve met a lot of writers, and I always feel a little like an imposter in their presence. With artists, I always feel right at home.

What is the most challenging part of writing? Of illustrating? I think writing is infinitely harder on the brain and body than art making. It’s the anti-social component of writing that I find most difficult. I’m used to sharing the studio with my wife, Erin. When we’re both making art, we can talk or listen to music. Art making requires a lot of movement too. You’re always standing up, sitting down, moving to the cutting matt or the light table, cleaning up messes, etc. Writing is solitary and sedentary by comparison. I have to be careful and smart about taking breaks.

How do you come up with your ideas? I wish I knew. Finished books always seem so mysterious. I wonder sometimes if I ever just have an idea, fully formed and ready to be used. Or, if what we think of as “ideas” are just the end-result artifacts of a painstaking archaeological dig through dark corners of the mind.

I agree, it often does feel like that. It seems you do a good job of excavating those hidden gems. This book especially feels as if many random bits have been pulled together to create an otherworldly tale like Alice in Wonderland, where everything is skewed and not what it seems, but also seems possible. You’ve already mentioned The Phantom Tollbooth. Did any other stories like those play a role in creating your goat world?

The Phantom Tollbooth for sure. But there’s actually another lesser-known Norton Juster book that was even more influential: Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys, illustrated by Domenico Gnoli. It is my number one all-time most recommended book. I love to introduce people to it. It’s just as brilliant as Tollbooth but has, in my opinion, even more heart. It ought to be a classic.

And the next burning question: Why goats? Honestly, I don’t know! It just happened!

Your novel reads as if you just jotted things down as they occurred to you, but its unusual structure seems quite deliberate. Can you tell us about your writing process?

It probably seems that way because both of those things are true for me. Free writing is essential to me at the start. I let my brain take whatever course most interests it. I figure if I’m surprised by the writing, then there’s a good chance the reader will be, too. In the next phase, though, I become a relentless and unforgiving editor. I come from picture books, where every word and phrase has to be calculated and weighed to the ounce. It’s the only way I know how to work, so I can’t help but apply the same approach to long form writing. This book is over 50,000 words, but to me it’s still a read aloud. It was written first and foremost to be musical.

You’ve certainly accomplished that. Along with the musicality, your decision to start with Chapter 13 was another creative decision. Did that chapter number have any special meaning?

I had been free writing for several months about an evil king and a nonsensical kingdom. I was maybe 10,000 words in and was starting to feel like it was really developing into something. I sent the writing I’d done so far to a trusted friend to ask her opinion. She wrote back very politely to say that while she thought the writing was clever and fun, she simply wasn’t that interested in the story. The reason she wasn’t interested was very simple. It had taken me 10,000 words to introduce my main character, Bernadette, into the action of the story. This is the kind of mistake an author makes when they write without a plan! I was feeling very low after that bit of feedback till I struck on the idea of simply moving around the parts that I’d written to rearrange them into an order that would allow Bernadette to be introduced right from the get-go. I cut and pasted chapter thirteen to the front and immediately thought: Well, that’s funny. And the idea to write out of order was born. From that point on, I wrote the book in exactly the order in which it’s read.

Well, that proved to be a clever decision. You also chose to break the fourth wall to bring readers into the story. Can you explain to our audience what “breaking the fourth wall” means, and why you chose to do it? I had never written a novel before. The revelations and pitfalls of the writing process became so interesting to me that it almost became inevitable that they would become a part of the story itself. All along I was wondering: How much am I really in control here? Am I really in charge of what’s going on? Or does the story write itself once its underway? The questions seemed like fitting parallels to the story of Bernadette, a young girl forced to make sense of her life in an otherwise nonsensical kingdom.

What parallels are there between you and the author character in the novel? The author in the book is the extreme version of my own creative personality. All highs and lows. Everything is either the best or the worst. The highs and lows are real. But in reality, of course, a lot of the work is done in the middle.

It seems you had as much fun writing this as we do reading it. What did you enjoy most about writing this book? Ha! You are incorrect! And I am very grateful that you are! Because it means that I did at least some of my job well. Writing this book was the single most torturous creative experience of my life. I am so glad that I did it. And I sincerely hope never to have to do it again!

Sorry to hear it was so painful, but we’re glad you persevered. I’m glad you can enjoy the book now that it’s completed. What was the most surprising thing you learned about yourself as you wrote and illustrated this book? That I was able to do it at all! It was a complete mystery to me at the outset whether I had a whole novel in me at all. Up until the very end (or the beginning, depending on your point of view) I didn’t know exactly where this story was going. It was a painstaking and careful improvisation. A tidy and satisfying conclusion was never a guarantee.

The art is as much fun as the story. What comes first for you—the pictures or the words? Which do you find easiest? Words almost always come first. And they are so much more difficult. I spent approximately three years writing this book and the whole time I was waiting to finally be done so I could take a deep breath and get back to the part that makes me most comfortable—the art.

Can you tell us how you developed the characters for the illustrations? This is a tricky one to answer. I feel like the characters were developed in the writing process, not the art process. The art was just a matter of revealing what was already on the written page. I know a lot of artists that fill sketchbook after sketchbook with practice drawings. I often wish that I worked that way. Mostly I just sit down and wait for an image to reveal itself. 90 percent of the time my first sketch is almost indistinguishable from my final art. Sometimes this feels like laziness. Sometimes it feels like honesty.

While short, pithy book titles seem more popular these days, your book titles are longer and reminiscent of old-fashioned classics. Is there a reason you prefer longer titles? I wouldn’t say I prefer one way or the other. Typically, titles are made after a book has been written, or at least mostly written. I just happened to make the unusual choice of writing my titles first. I wasn’t sure which I would use, and because I liked them equally, I made the dubious decision to keep them both. Then it became my job as a writer to figure out what the titles actually meant. The titles were, essentially, writing prompts for the book itself. It sounds crazy, I know, but I see children do this sort of thing all the time when they write. And we could do a lot worse than to look to children for inspiration on how to create art with a sense of joy, whimsy, and wonder.

What’s the main thing you want readers to take away from the story? There are twenty-four morals in book. Each one is neatly set apart from the text as it occurs. It’s the twenty-fourth moral that is, to me, the most meaningful one. It encapsulates everything I would hope a reader would take away from the story. Of course, you’ll have to read the book to find out what Moral #24 is. No spoilers here!

Okay, we’ll keep it a secret…

Do you have a favorite among the books you’ve written? I have several that have been special to me for different reasons. There have been books that were lifelines to me during difficult times (I’d Like to Be the Window for a Wise Old Dog), or books that are deeply personal (Ideas are All Around), or books that were just fun to make (Jonathan and the Big Blue Boat).It’s hard, though, not to pick A Sick Day for Amos McGee. That book has allowed me to freely make almost every book I’ve wanted to make for almost twenty years.Can you tell us what you’re working on now? Right now I’m working on a very odd little picture book about bird watching and poetry. I’m also working on a middle-grade detective series with my good friend Matthew Cordell. Whisker and Wing Detective Agency will be out sometime in 2027.

Can’t wait to read both of your new books. And again, thanks so much for answering all our the questions. We really appreciate it, and wish you the best in your art and writing.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic X: Or, Like Lightning in an Umbrella Storm by Philip Stead is a laugh-out-loud, one-of-a-kind illustrated tale, chock-full of running gags, broken fourth walls, and underdog triumph.

Now, to the story. Where to start? Chapter One is missing. To discover where the story truly begins, readers must start in the middle. The novel follows Bernadette, a girl taken from the roadside at age six by a cruel king and hidden beneath a moving castle carried on the backs of 24 goats. Forced to live below the castle and care for the animals, Bernadette survives cramped quarters, near-death encounters, and years of isolation. Her closest companion is Perseverance, a turtle whose many narrow escapes teach Bernadette the meaning of resilience. Six years later, when Bernadette’s most irritable goat escapes and Perseverance is marked to be eaten, she sets out on a journey to save the only friends she has ever known. Along the way, she meets a “non–wish-granting” magical tree that longs to explore, a forgetful magician searching for his lost brother, and a gentle goat named Steve, whose quiet courage holds the story together — quite literally.

As the goats begin to flee and the castle threatens to collapse, the novel’s nonlinear structure tightens, revealing that the missing first chapter has been hiding in plain sight. Power, Bernadette learns, does not come from magic, titles, or wealth, but from empathy, humility, and the bravery to act.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo by Nicole Haley

PHILIP C. STEAD is the author of the Caldecott Medal–winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee, also named a New York Times Best Illustrated Book and a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of 2010. With his wife and frequent collaborator, Erin E. Stead, he has also created Bear Has a Story to Tell, an E.B. White Read-Aloud Award honor book. An accomplished author and illustrator, Stead has written and illustrated numerous acclaimed titles, including Hello, My Name Is Ruby, Jonathan and the Big Blue Boat, and A Home for Bird. Philip and Erin live in northern Michigan. Visit Philip online at philipstead.com.

Laurie J. Edwards

Laurie J. Edwards planned to run away when she was nine. She didn’t get far before she realized she’d miss her pet parakeet, so she slept on the back patio. That started her on a life of travel that has led to many interesting adventures, including stepping on a lizard in Africa, climbing a Korean mountain in flip-flops, strolling the streets of Venice in a cat costume, and eating deep-fried water beetles (yum!) in China. You can find out more about her and her books at her website.