As much as I love music, it will always be a hobby for me, and I’m happy about that. It’s great to have a creative counterpart to my job – even if it is a creative occupation in itself. I set up my own business as a freelance writer in 2011 – certainly a very gutsy step, as I didn’t have a book contract in sight at the time, but that all came to fruition a year later and since then I’ve published a number of books for people of all ages, always with a connection to my great passion, fantasy. All of those books are in German – there’s no English translation in sight, though »the Dolls’ Room« was translated into Russian.
There haven’t been any bestsellers yet, but in 2023 I won the Wetzlar Fantasy Prize for my dystopian children’s book »Below«,and I keep seeing how much I get back for sharing my stories with the world. When you read in front of an auditorium full of eleven-year-olds and answer their curious questions afterwards, you don’t have to be afraid of anything, especially not the audience at a filk convention.
And if I’ve aroused your curiosity a little with my middle-evil songs, here’s a bit of shameless advertising for the books I read for a living:
The Neraval Saga
Probably the filkiest thing I’ve published so far is a high fantasy trilogy, published by the renowned Hobbit Press at Klett-Cotta from 2019 to 2022. Here you’ll find everything you’d find in my songs: murderous princes, lies and intrigue, a clever twist at the end, and as much love, booze and death as you could possibly wish for. But speaking of wishing: I would have liked this series to be more successful, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be. It wasn’t on the market for long and is now out of print, but is still available in antiquarian bookshops.
The Doll’s Room
My debut novel, published as an ebook in 2013, is a classic gaslight novel with a fantastical twist. Touching and creepy, this story tells of Florence, who comes from an orphanage to the magnificent mansion Hollyhock in the year 1906 to find not only hundreds of porcelain dolls, but above all the truth about herself. This novel has sold like hotcakes, has been translated into Russian and has opened many doors for me – including some that might have been better left closed. Not every authorial experience is a positive one. But that’s another story, which I’ll tell another time
The Shadows of Owls End
Brand new in November 2024 is this book – another gaslight novel, again about a creepy house, this time set in 1896. In search of her first great love, her maid Dinah, young Adelia Borrell comes to Owls End to investigate. She is asked to push an empty pram through the garden for the insane lady of the manor, and that is only the first strange thing she encounters in the run-down estate – soon she meets little Gracie, who asks three questions and disappears again, and her grown-up counterpart, big Gracie, who has eyes like the sky in the shadow of the rainbow and smells of freedom and nettles …
Below
My first children’s book for adults, or vice versa, is set from top to bottom in a single, never-ending tower block. Here the building management sets the tone, everything has to abide by the rules and does so, but when Nevo’s friend Juma falls down the laundry chute and is immediately replaced by another girl, Nevo sets off downstairs to look for her. The deeper she goes, the darker, but also crazier, what she sees and the people she meets become, until she meets Mat, who lives in the trash and talks to the rats and who has an idea how to find Juma … My first book that was reviewed in the feature pages, that won a prize and with which I proved to myself that I can also write children’s books.
The fourth wall
My second children’s book for adults is a philosophical story about reality and identity, about Fox, who first finds words, then stories, then her anger, and never her way out. Creepy in places, always a little different than expected, this story ends with the most personal twist ever for me, and I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to build on the success of »Below«, terrified the book would flop with critics, and terrified people would reject the ending I made myself so vulnerable with. But so far – the book was only published in August 2024 and I’m writing these lines in October – everything has gone well.
That’s it for a brief overview of what I’ve been writing. I hope to add a few more books over the years – why don’t you check back from time to time to see if anything has changed, or, even better, visit my official author website at www.ilisch.de.