An Interview with Mark Bowsher

Mark Bowsher has been a freelance writer and filmmaker since 2013. He’s written four award-winning short films and had short stories published by Fish Publishing and Breakthrough Books. He’s directed promo films for Jaguar Land Rover, VSO, and Unbound. He’s also written and directed several chart-topping documentaries for Dan Snow’s History Hit.

What inspired you to start writing this book?

Mainly feeling down. I wrote these stories to cheer myself up. I went back to everything I enjoyed as a kid—from The BFG to Narnia and, most significantly, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark.

His Dark Materials and Doctor Who are in there too. Anything full of darkness, adventure, and variety. If a story moves between several worlds, that’s very much for me.

Tell us the story of your book’s current title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

I swear the name came first. I didn’t know what The Dream-Pedlars’ Parade was, but then I started conjuring up a Victoriana city the size of a universe where nobody dreams. I actually came up with this title before I came up with the title for book 1, The Boy Who Stole Time. It was called The Time Thieves for a long time, but it felt a bit perfunctory. I scribbled various combinations of name titles on a sheet of paper one day until I came up with The Boy Who Stole Time. But The Dream-Pedlars’ Parade came fully formed. It’s odd that I’m particularly proud of the plot of this book, yet so much of it was inspired by the name. Sometimes you just need a jumping off point and you work out the rest later!

Describe your dream book cover.

Well, I have my dream book cover! I was looking for a designer, shared a moodboard of covers I liked on Facebook, and my friend Helen Nias suggested her friend Lyall McCarthy. His work is honestly stunning and I love The Dream-Pedlars’ Parade even more than The Boy Who Stole Time. There are plenty of details on there. There are the knieves of ShadowThief and MalJack Strode who cross blades several times in the book in some incredibly exciting set-pieces which I’m so proud of. There’s a dream-pedlars’ cart with a dream streaming out of it. And there are the three towers featured in the three rare dreams Krish and his companions are searching for—a lighthouse, a prison, and a tower made of pure sound.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

Oooh, I like this question! It’s a tough one though. Well, Captain Stavast very much feels like he’d be into sea shanties, but it’s Thomas Bergersen’s instrumental album Sun that’s really in my head. It’s pacy, exciting, utterly bombastic, but it’s full of grandeur too. It’s the sort of album that feels very much influenced by classical music but is OTT enough for people to be dismissive of. I like that because I hate the snobbery of distinguishing between ‘high art’ and ‘low art’. Episodes of Doctor Who are probably 95% silly throwaway adventures, but it’s that 5% of profundity that stays with you. I’d rather be that than a Booker prize winner. Which is easy to say as someone who’ll never win one!

What books are you reading (for research or comfort) as you continue the writing process?

Embers by Sandor Marai really influenced the villains. It’s intense and brooding, obsessed over the smallest moments. I read a book on the poison garden at Alnwick Castle. It’s amazing (and disturbing!) how many apparently innocuous foodstuffs are potentially poisonous. Ashley Hickson-Lovence’s books The 392 and Wild East are great indirect bits of inspiration. Although they’re totally different, they remind you to be brief, true, and rhythmic.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I work mainly as a filmmaker, directing and editing promo films. My obsession with filming nature, even when living most of my life in London, has really shaped the book. KnockThrice is a world without countryside. They don’t even understand the word when Krish introduces it to them. But the natural world crops up in dreams like a strange alternative reality to the people of KnockThrice. Rosemary is described as growing over one of the tombstones in a graveyard on a rooftop in the city. This is actually a massive hint to a big twist at the end, but not one I’d ever expect anyone to notice!

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

No. I honestly think it was everything I ever watched or wrote. Good or bad, it all feeds in there. Sometimes I struggle to express myself person to person, so I have to do it through the written word instead.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Out of the house. My brain is stimulated in such different ways when I’m out and about. I could go on a long walk in the city or in the countryside and come up with a whole new novel by the time I get home.

What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?

The characters. I love creating worlds, but if they’re in love with Krish, Thira, Aemea, and ShadowThief by the end, then I’m happy.

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.