Author Interview: Josiah Bancroft

Author of The Books of Babel and The Hexologists

Josiah Bancroft has been publishing books for over a decade now, but it initially took a few years for his first series, The Books of Babel, to garner the attention it now has. The Books of Babel was one of the few series I have read in recent years that felt largely original and his worldbuilding and prose are some of the best in the fantasy genre. His new series, The Hexologists, is underway with the first book out and the second in the works. Not only is he an accomplished author, but one of the most generous and genuinely humble people I have met. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Josiah and his thoughtful answers about his start in writing and his body of work. Beware of spoilers for The Books of Babel in the spoiler section of the interview!

Q: First of all, let me say that we are so grateful for your willingness to join us in this discussion and know you are busy right now with the recent release of your new book. You have talked about your experience writing in your younger years, but ultimately you decided to pursue different interests and only looked to full-time writing later in life. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey and writing early on and how you slowly made your way toward becoming an author by profession? Did you feel the pull of this desire throughout your life or was it a more sudden realization?

I was always writing. In high school, I co-founded a literary society that published zines. During my undergraduate education—which dragged on for seven years and spanned four institutions in as many states—I studied English, wrote daily, and formed or contributed to several writing groups, which varied in focus and longevity. My Masters is in Literature, but I took as many creative writing classes as the MFA program would allow, and contributed, whenever possible, to readings and events.

Writing has always been my vocation, though I have also been passionate about some of my hobbies, including music and art. I received my first rejection letter at 16 after submitting a teleplay I co-authored to the BBC. But my second rejection, garnered shortly thereafter, was from Marvel Comics for a comic book that I would describe as unfocused, unpolished, and ill-advised. Mercifully, the comic was destroyed in a flood, though I still have the rejection letter. During my post-grad years, I would go on to accrue hundreds of rejections from publishers, agents, and journals—mostly of the "literary" variety. My post-graduate career was as an educator teaching others to write, work that helped pay the bills while I continued to scribble my doggerel, occasionally publish, and expand my ever-fattening file of refusals.

I've always written, and always wanted to be a writer, but it took me more than 35 years to settle into my voice and to begin to identify an audience. It wasn't for lack of trying, just lack of genius and good luck, the latter of which proved more essential than the former.

Q. So you decide to start writing Senlin Ascends (the first book in the The Books of Babel tetralogy) and there wasn’t a lot of initial traction, being a new author. Can you share with us the process of releasing your first book as an aspiring writer? Did it feel high stakes since this was a part of you that you were putting out there to the public or because you didn’t have an established audience did you feel less pressure? What led you to continue on with the series throughout that process?

I intended to self-publish Senlin Ascends from the outset. I had spent the previous eight or nine years amassing hundreds of rejections for shorter works, and I couldn't bear to repeat that cycle of nervous anticipation and withering disappointment with a novel. Self-publishing was my way of hopping over the gate and its keepers to access readers directly.

I also didn't want to compromise my vision for the books. I didn't want editorial notes suggesting that Thomas Senlin be more likable, or the Tower less baroque, or the language less florid. I wanted to tell this weird story in my own weird way. For me, the stakes were always simple: I wanted to publish a book I could be proud of before I died. My uncle, who had an immense influence on my development as a writer and thinker and who I dedicated The Hod King to, was a prolific but unpublished writer who died young. I self-published Senlin Ascends because I didn't want my life's work to be an ode to a desk drawer.

And yet, I was horribly naive with my expectations of how my self-published magnum opus would be received. I had a goal of selling 500 copies over the course of that first year, a modest number that concealed an immodest fantasy of appearing on best sellers lists and lording the endcaps of airport bookstores. In the end, I sold closer to 200 copies, and that was only accomplished with an immense amount of effort. I frittered an embarrassing amount of money on online ads. I submitted the book to nearly a hundred independent book reviewers. I took physical copies of my books to comic conventions and sold them in person. To my enduring chagrin, I printed and distributed full-color press releases to every independent bookstore across four states, none of whom responded to my missives or my groveling follow-ups. I did everything but put on a chicken suit and stand on a street corner bearing a sign that read, Bock, Bock, Buy My Book!

All the while, I was working on the sequel, Arm of the Sphinx. The novel reflects a lot of the self-doubt and disillusionment and stubbornness that defined that period of my life. The third part of the book, The Bottomless Library, was written during a moment of utter defeat and depression, and it shows, I think. Thomas Senlin's decent into the Sphinx's atheneum reflects my own dawning realization that I was writing for no one, that my effort to evade my uncle's fate of obscurity had failed. I had simply shifted the source of my rejection from the inboxes of literary agents and publishers to the broader public, who had glanced at the dust jacket of my raison d'être, and pronounced the uncontestable verdict, "Nah."

I stopped writing the series shortly after publishing Arm of the Sphinx. I didn't see the point of embellishing that resounding defeat with further failure. I started writing songs. I focused on my music. I reunited with my high school rock band and started recording. I moved on.

Q: I know that Mark Lawrence was a huge catalyst in terms of the popularity of the The Books of Babel series. Can you tell us the story behind Mark finding and then sharing about your book? Do you have a relationship with him now and has there been anyone else in particular that was supportive and instrumental in spreading the word about your first series?

Senlin Ascends - Lettered Edition from Subterranean Press*

The very last thing I did before shelving the series was to submit Senlin Ascends to Mark Lawrence's Self-Published Blog Off. I had never heard of Mark or his work, but in my scouring the web for promotional opportunities, I came across his competition that invited self-publishers to submit their novels for review by a collection of bloggers who would then put forward their favorite book as a finalist, creating a pool from which a winner would eventually be selected. Frankly, I forgot that I had entered the contest when, months later, I read the review of Senlin Ascends on the now defunct blog, Pornokitsch. The reviewer, Jared, had some nice things to say about the book, but ultimately decided to put forward another book, The Path of Flames by Phil Tucker, as a finalist. I congratulated Phil on his victory and went back to writing songs about giant robots.

As the contest's sponsor, Mark saw the review. He felt sorry for me and my almost good-enough book, which he decided to read. For whatever reason, the novel resonated with him. He contacted me to share his very favorable impression of the book, and he offered to put me in touch with his literary agency. Naturally, I agreed.

Meanwhile, he took every opportunity to share his enthusiasm for the book on his blog, twitter, and reddit. People began to read the book. I scheduled a meeting with Ian Drury, Mark's agent, and took the train up to New York City to discuss representation and my books. It was all perfectly surreal. In the span of a few months, I went from utter defeat to signing a four-book contract with Orbit—all of which would never have happened without Mark's determined help.

Mark and I still occasionally correspond, and he continues to be supportive of my efforts to entertain. We've never met in person, but I hope to make it over to his side of the pond someday. I owe the man a pint.

Q: The Books of Babel is such a unique series and I’ve heard you describe it as a synthesis of some of the late 1800’s literature greats like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells mixed with Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. It does really feel like an apt description considering the overall setting and adventure narrative mixed with your wonderful prose and some of the unique absurdities in the tower. When you have influences like this, how do you make sure that your own narrative voice and unique vision for the series shine through and it doesn’t become parody? I think you did a phenomenal job making it feel like nothing I’ve ever read before. I’m curious how you think you made something that felt familiar in regards to the influences you mentioned, but was also wholly unique in the execution?

Arm of the Sphinx title page from Subterranean Press*

I would describe much of the writing that preceded The Books of Babel as vigorously incoherent. I studied the Romantics and the Beats and fancied myself an absurdist, though really, I was just a bit of a self-important git. For a time, I thought that perhaps I would mature into magical realism, but I discovered that my affection for the genre and its many iterations from around the globe did not translate into a facility with the form. Everything I wrote felt false to me, which was very frustrating because I was trying so hard to be sincere.

Senlin Ascends was written from a place of profound frustration. Having grown disillusioned with contemporary poetry and my own work, I returned to the adventure books that I had read as a boy in the hopes of reinvigorating my love of writing, which had begun to falter. I rediscovered amid that survey of Verne, Wells, Kipling, and Stevenson that old sense of awe mixed with terror that first drove me to read and write. But, I was also absolutely repulsed by the breezy racism, casual misogyny, and flagrant jingoism of many of those stories. The themes that had passed over my head as a youth suddenly struck me as egregious and gross. Senlin Ascends was my way of subverting some of those tropes, while still reveling in the intermittent wonder and ever-looming peril that defines a good adventure.

Q: There are so many aspects that contribute to a good story, including prose, characterization, world-building, plot, message and so much more. The first two aspects in The Books of Babel that stood out to me were prose and world-building, because right out of the gate these two aspects just hook you and never let go. How do you seek to balance the aspects of what it means to be a good storyteller and where do you think your strengths lie in this regard?

I grew up in a family of storytellers. Whenever my family gathered, stories abounded. Those tales overlapped; they competed; they blended together, unspooling late into the evening. Each story typically had three things in common. First, the tale centered upon an unlikely, almost unbelievable event—a one-in-a-million chance or an act of hubris blessed by luck. Second, the storyteller took pains to communicate the skepticism and awe of all who witnessed the incredible occurrence. Third, the story concluded with some raucous or comical twist that made everything feel simultaneously absurd and yet absolutely inevitable. For me, a good story does not only beg the audience's patience, asking them to temporarily suspend their disbelief; a good story interrogates incredulity and proselytizes wonder in devoted service of a single goal: the elicitation of joy.

My prose is a product of my obsessive personality and my fraught history with poetry. I had to abandon poetry, a form I dedicated nearly a decade of my life to, partly because I could not find an audience and partly because I could not stop rewriting my poems. The nature of poetry—which gives priority to the musicality of language, the nuance of image, and the intricacies of metaphor—gave me license to engage in a process of endless (and ultimately destructive) tinkering. Even now, when I occasionally go back to read my old poems, I feel a powerful urge to revise, to reword, to adjust the lineation, to reseat the caesura, to tear the poem down to its stanza breaks and build it up again. This desire springs from the absolutely insane assumption that the perfect verse exists in potentia and can be teased into existence with just the right alignment of commas.

The Books of Babel Lettered Set from Subterranean Press*

Shortly before I began writing Senlin Ascends, I read Camus' The Plague. (My John Tarrou is an obvious homage to that novel's Jean Tarrou.) In the novel, there's a character, Joseph Grand, whose literary aspirations are thwarted by his obsessiveness with the language, which is epitomized by his pursuit of a perfect opening line. Over the course of the novel, he writes and rewrites the opening to his unfinished but presumptive masterpiece again and again, but never to his lasting satisfaction. It was the fear of turning into Mr. Grand, the fear of having my life's work be perfect erasure rather than imperfect creation that compelled me to write (and finish) a novel. Confronting the fact that my perfectionism was a convoluted sort of cowardice was revelatory. Whatever my strengths as a writer may be, I am most proud of the fact that I have had sufficient courage to risk exposing my creative weaknesses and compositional shortcomings to the world as I endeavor to spread a little wonder and engender a little joy.

Q: When considering Italo Calvino and his Invisible Cities, one of the things that I saw as a huge parallel between his work and The Books of Babel is that the settings (tower/cities) seem to play a bigger role than simply a location for a story. There is a high level of description and energy imbued in the tower itself. In your series, I would argue that the tower is not only an extremely interesting setting, but in some sense a main character and catalyst for change that is just as important as any other aspect of the story. What made the tower important and how do you think it governed the story in ways greater than a simple setting?

As I've often shared before, Invisible Cities was a primary source of inspiration for my vision of the Tower. And I think it's fair to say the Tower is a central character of the books. Indeed, the Tower occurred to me first. I spent several weeks writing around the Tower without the benefit of characters or the obligations of a plot. I described its facades, its human tides, and the airships that swarmed to it like flies. I toured the Market and the train stations and the desolate and dangerous Skirts. I was having a grand time, but I was also having trouble moving my explication of the Tower to its interiors. I felt as if I was, myself, being rebuffed by the Tower.

The function of the cast of characters that I then assembled was primarily (at least initially) as lenses for exploring and elucidating the inner-workings of that impenetrable monolith. I needed Thomas Senlin to pull me into the Tower, to show me its secrets, to illuminate its mazes. It was only after I finished the first draft of The Basement that I had a sense of what I wanted to do with the book and how the Tower functioned. It was at that point that I wrote my two-page plan for the series—a document that I would refer to often over the next nine years.

Q: Our readers will be very familiar with your Subterranean Press set of The Books of Babel and the collaboration with artist Tom Kidd on what is one of the most beautiful and thoughtful sets that they have released. Were you aware of the small press market when you were approached by Sub Press and what was that experience like seeing your books be brought to life by such an incredible artist and publisher? How involved have you been with the upcoming limited release of your next book?

Cover Art by Tom Kidd for The Books of Babel series from Subterranean Press

I was perfectly unaware of the small press landscape that Sub Press inhabits, but I feel very privileged to have been introduced to this world. I was approached by a few small presses when Orbit picked up the rights to The Books of Babel, but I selected Subterranean Press largely because I was so impressed with Bill Schafer. I've met many engaged and thoughtful people in the industry, but Bill distinguished himself as someone who really loves books, loves stories, and values the authors and artists he works with. As just one example of his thoughtfulness, when I and my family had Covid, Bill sent us a box of consumable delights. I was really touched by that. I dedicated An Empyreal Retinue to Bill and Tom Kidd because they were so instrumental in bringing my vision to fruition. And Bill introduced me to Tom Kidd, who is such a wonderful, generous, talented, funny, approachable person. I was, quite honestly, flabbergasted when I learned Tom would be creating the covers for the Sub Press editions. The man is a legend! And the work he produced for the editions is simply astonishing—beautiful, inventive, and full of little nods to the details of the story. I still correspond regularly with Tom and feel lucky to know him and to get glimpses into his creative process, both as an artist and a writer.

With Sub Press's forthcoming edition of The Hexologists, Bill has graciously continued to ask for my input on the book's design. I'm particularly excited about this edition because Bill tapped Ian Leino to produce the internal illustrations. Ian is the artist of the incredible original covers for The Books of Babel. Ian and I have been best friends since forever. We camped out in a tent in his backyard. We built tree forts together. And he drew the illustrations for my first fantasy novel, The Quest for Mortoangus, while we were still in grade school. Having the opportunity to work with Ian again, in this capacity, and at this level—it truly is the culmination of a life-long dream. My career has been marked by exceptional privileges, but none will ever be greater than having my best friend illustrate one of my books.

Q: You have recently released the first book in your newest series called The Hexologists, a married detective duo that is exploring a London-inspired post-industrial world full of magic and villains that kicks off with a King being asked to be baked into a cake. What were your first inspirations for this story and was it difficult finding a new story that moved you enough to start writing it?

Trade cover of The Hexologists

I grew up loving mysteries, but I was always more of a Thin Man fan than a devotee of Philip Marlowe and the like. I do appreciate and enjoy aspects of Noir, but my sensibilities trend toward the madcap, the glib, and the verbose.

I read a lot of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie growing up, and I watched enumerable episodes of the long-running Mystery! series on PBS. I've always wanted to try my hand at writing a mystery, even knowing just how tricky the form is to engage, improve, and subvert. I wanted the challenge of writing something new, and I was not afraid of failing in that effort.

Q: One of the biggest things that struck me when reading The Hexologists was how novel it felt to be reading about a relatively functional couple that is in love and truly understands each other. Then it made me contemplate why this seemed so unusual in more recent literature. Was this something you consciously set out to do when creating this duo or was it just a natural outflowing of the characters you created? Why do you think this would be considered unusual?

After The Books of Babel, I was determined to write about a healthy, loving, and devoted couple whose relationship was defined by open communication and unabashed affection. That seemed the most radical, novel, and refreshing option.

It's no secret that dysfunction and miscommunication are easy sources of dramatic tension. It's easy to write shallow, deceitful, peevish jerks, and it's easy to justify this creative choice as resulting from the pursuit of realism. But I think that is a rather cynical view of the world, and the result is often flat, predictable, homogenous characters. I don't find selfishness particularly interesting or nuanced, and I do not enjoy reading about callow, young characters, whose greatest difficulties could be readily resolved with a frank conversation or a modicum of self-reflection. I don't think a lack of self-awareness equates to depth, nor that miserable characters are somehow more faceted than happy ones.

Joy, sympathy, and love can be just as complex as wrath, depression, or a desire for revenge. The Wilbies are odd balls who are trying to live considered, moral lives, while taking every opportunity to enjoy themselves and celebrate one another. That is an objective that I personally find more alluring and interesting at this point in my life.

Numbered edition cover of Hexologists - Subterranean Press

Which is not to suggest that the Wilbies are perfect, either individually or as a couple. They have their foibles and flaws, but they are devoted to one another and motivated by a desire to assist the powerless in an inequitable world.

Q: What should we be looking forward to coming from you in the future from inside and outside the world of The Hexologists?

The Hexologists series will be comprised of three novels, each of which is a distinct mystery/adventure that stands on its own. I'm finishing the draft of the second volume now and I have about half of the final entry jotted out in longhand. The first book is (broadly) a missing-person mystery. The second book is a murder mystery. And the final book will be a supernatural "creature-feature." My goal with these books is to have fun—fun with the language, the humor, the set pieces, and the characters. These aren't frivolous books, but they are not suffused with philosophical aphorism in the way that The Books of Babel were. I could see myself writing more novellas and short stories about the Wilbies in the years to come. I certainly have a number of ideas.

Spoiler Section for The Books of Babel - This Section will contain very serious spoilers relating to The Books of Babel series

Q: Character evolution seems to be of crucial importance in this story as all of the main characters evolve to become very different people than when their journey started in the tower. One of my favorite quotes is, “We are, each of us, a multitude. I am not the man I was this morning, nor the man of yesterday. I am a throng of myself queued through time. We are, gentle reader, each a crowd within a crowd.” Did you start with a beginning point and end point for each character or did this evolve as you wrote the story? What character arcs were the most pivotal to the story in your mind? If Senlin and Marya had not been separated and gone through what they had, could they have been happy and do you see a future for them further down the road?

By the time I finished drafting Senlin Ascends, I had a clear idea of how I wanted each of the main characters to struggle, evolve, and ultimately resolve. I knew Edith Winters would take on the mantle of the Sphinx, accepting grave responsibilities for an ungrateful population with intractable problems, and that Iren would find love and a community of peers who respected her and treated her as a source of wisdom, and that Adam would find purpose with the hods, who would be more receptive to his protectiveness than Voleta ever was. I knew that Voleta would unlock the Tower's greatest secrets and learn along the way that fearlessness is not the same thing as courage, and I knew that Thomas Senlin would foil Marat's avaricious ambitions through humility, self-sacrifice, and cunning: three things he did not come to the Tower with in great supply. And I knew he would end the story in a position of romantic ambiguity.

Books of Babel Broadside from Collectible Book Vault

After I published Arm of the Sphinx, a friend, who was one of the very few people to have read the book at that point, asked me for reassurance that Tom and Marya were going to have a glad reunion at the end of the series. They told me plainly that they did not want to read on if I was just going to disappoint them by withholding a happy ending. I promised them that the ending, while not perfectly happy, would at least be hopeful. That's how I think of Tom and Marya's future and the possibility of reconciliation. And there is reason to be optimistic. Tom has proven himself to be patient and attentive, and Marya has demonstrated that she is taking ownership of both her past and her recovery. These are two people who have a lot to work through, both individually and together, but they share the incentive of a tangled history, lingering affection, and an infant to encourage them in that process of healing.

I realize that some readers wanted a more uncomplicated storybook ending—including that friend I alluded to earlier, who was none too pleased with how I left things—but I think that such a conclusion would've felt contrived and out of character for books that frequently grapple with questions of self-discovery, disappointment, and growth.

Q: There is a fine line between moralizing or being overly didactic and allowing a story to communicate a message or theme naturally to the reader. Your series struck me as having a very nice balance, allowing the story to deliver important thematical elements naturally, but also having some memorable lines related to different larger socioeconomic and cultural issues. Was there anything you actually set out to impart to the readers in this sense or was it simply a natural outpouring of the setting and the characters interacting with the world they resided in?

Generally, I hope that the series encourages people to read more critically and thoughtfully. The series is full of supposed authorities and a variety of pompous authors, all claiming to have something profound or insightful to impart. But it should become apparent very quickly that some of the information and philosophy conveyed by those luminaries is inaccurate, problematic, or limited in its applicability. Complicating matters further is the fact that unintelligent or degenerate persons occasionally make reasonable observations or raise valid points—if generally for the wrong reasons.

Map of Lower Ringdoms

Both the main characters and the reader have to weigh and analyze a wide variety of perspectives and opinions as they move towards the ultimate goal of understanding—understanding the motives of others, the machinations of a complex society, and one's own self. Thomas Senlin comes to the Tower believing that his narrow band of literacy applies to the whole world. The Tower reveals the deep and convoluted subtexts of the texts he believes he has mastered. He is a didact who is humbled by experience, which is something that happened to me in the years leading up to the drafting of these novels.

Q: We only got to see a small portion of the tower, were there any floors that you had originally planned on including the story that ended up getting cut? What other areas would you love to explore more if you were to go back into that world?

I had wanted to spend more time exploring Pelphia's rival—Algez. I envisioned the Algezians being a staid and stoic antipode to their more frivolous cousins. In my notes, their culture was described as a mashup of brutalist architecture and Rodgers and Hammerstein-esque wit. And I wanted to spend more time in the Shipyards where the fleets of airships were commissioned, built, and retired, and I wanted to explore the Tower's bizarre agriculture, something I briefly touch on in "Into the Misanthropolis." And I had ideas for the aquafers beneath the Tower, a system that is obliquely alluded to, but which cries out for a more concerted spelunking.

Q: Who was your favorite character to write and who do you see as the hero of the story, if there even is one?

I don't think the story has a hero, though I think several of the characters have their heroic moments. Byron was probably my favorite character to write, particularly because he arrived in the story at a moment when many of the characters were pent up and struggling to communicate.

Illustration of Byron by Tom Kidd from Empyreal Retinue

His lack of tact and acerbic wit were particularly helpful during a section that is full of sensitivity and vulnerability: Thomas is suffering from withdrawn and gnawing guilt; Edith is confronted with the loss of her engine arm and her own tangled desires; Iren is experiencing the onset of menopause; and Adam is determined to make his own way, if only to escape his overbearing presence in his sister's life. Amid all of this introspection and uncertainty, Byron offers quick verdicts and brutal honesty.

Though for all of his prickliness, Byron is probably the story's most sensitive soul. Exploring his character, particularly through his tutelage of Voleta and his friendship with Edith, was one of my favorite aspects of the later books.

Q: The fourth book and particularly the ending of the story has been a somewhat polarizing part of the series and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, there were some people who felt like they were left unsatisfied with too many questions unanswered. The book ends with an abrupt departure, important relationships still on the rocks, and some unanswered questions about the Bricklayer and his intentions. When you wrote the ending, did you sense that there would be some division among readers at how it was received? Why did you feel like it was the proper ending and how intently did you have it planned out from the inception of the series?

There is little in the world more tedious, unwelcome, or needless than an author explaining or justifying their published book—particularly to those who have read it and disliked it. The Fall of Babel is something that I poured all of my talent, energy, and ambition into. It was considered. It was deliberate. It was frequently joyful. Some readers did not appreciate the result, which is perfectly reasonable. Any attempt on my part to reframe the work or reform its reception would only insult the book's critics and humiliate myself.

Q: As always, a wonderfully eloquent response, I love that stance and perspective. Would you ever see yourself returning to the world of The Books of Babel in any format or do you feel like that chapter has been closed and the story is finished for those characters? Where would you expect the story to go if you were to continue on?

Since publishing The Fall of Babel, I've continued to occasionally revisit the Tower. I've shared some of those epistles and vignettes on my Patreon. Other snippets, I've kept to myself. I'm not sure if I'll ever return to the world of Babel in a formal sense, but it remains a place that my idle thoughts often return to.

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This interview was done in a series of communications back and forth and I want to give a special thanks to Josiah who was so gracious to give us so much of his valuable time. If you want to get more information on his books and latest news, check out his website. If you would like original stories and special content from Josiah, you can also sign up for his Patreon and support him as an author in a more concrete way.

Interview by: Zach Harney a co-founder of the Collectible Book Vault

*The pictures of the lettered editions of The Books of Babel were contributed with permission by our favorite book photographer Yegor Malinovskii who goes by @artofcollectiblebooks on Instagram. He is the major inspiration for me getting into book photography and has always been a huge support!