About the Author: Refe Tuma
What would you like readers to know about you?
My name is Refe Tuma (pronounced ‘reef’) and I’ve written six books for kids of all ages, including the award-winning and bestsellingWhat the Dinosaurs Did picture book series, my middle grade debut Frances and the Monster, and its upcoming sequel Frances and the Werewolves of the Black Forest.
I live with my wife and frequent co-author Susan Tuma in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, IL with our four kids, two brand new kittens named Pablo and Nico, and our dog Boris.
You should also know that for a period of one week in 1998, I convinced my friends, classmates, and various neighbors that my parents had recently discovered my great-grandfather Refe’s secret criminal past and had forced me to legally change my name to Gavin.
What music do you listen to (if any) when you write?
I write in complete silence more often than not. I love music, and chipping away at a scene with a great track playing in the background sounds like paradise. Unfortunately, lyrics seem to overload the language center of my brain when I’m writing, so that rules out most modern music.
Instrumentals don’t present the same problem, but they do tend to fall at the extremes of chill on the one end and loud and bombastic at the other. I don’t want my music to lull me to sleep, and I don’t want to be completely distracted when the French horn section blasts to life. I know a lot of writers who prefer movie soundtracks. I can make this work for me at times, but because soundtracks are written to illicit and enhance specific emotions, it can take a lot of work curating appropriate tracks for the vibe of whatever scene I’m working on at the moment.
One trick I played around with while writing this book was to choose a trigger song. Frances and the Werewolves of the Black Forest was the first novel I wrote under a deadline. At the same time, I was releasing and promoting my debut, Frances and the Monster. Oh, and I was still working a full time job. And did I mention I have four kids? As you can imagine, I had to make time to write wherever I could, and that often happened in fits and spurts. To help me switch gears faster from work or family time and get my head back into Frances’s world, I started every writing session by listening to the same song at least once.
This was immensely helpful, especially in the beginning, and I’d recommend every working writer give it a try. (If you’re curious, my trigger song was ‘Running with the Wolves’ by Aurora. A little on the nose, I know…)
What books or authors inspired you to become a writer?
As a kid, I loved the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. In fact, the first book I ever wrote was Redwall fanfic titled Storm Badger. It was twelve pages long and included original warrior badger illustrations drawn in colored pencil. I had the privilege of meeting Jacques before he died. He was an—and this is not a word that is normally a part of my vocabulary—jolly old man with a white beard. Listening to him read from his books to me and two dozen other kids, I could tell there was nothing else he’d rather be doing with his time.
I also started reading Stephen King in third grade which I’m sure has shaped my sensibilities as a writer in ways I don’t even recognize.
About the Book: Frances and the Werewolves of the Black Forest
What is your book about for those who haven’t read it?
Frances and the Werewolves of the Black Forest is the dark and twisty sequel to my debut middle grade novel Frances and the Monster. Set in Bern, Switzerland in 1939, Europe is about to descend into another world war. At the start of book one, Frances is desperate to prove she’s ready to leave the safety of her home and join her scientist parents on their latest tour of lectures after spending years recuperating from a traumatic accident. Instead, she discovers a secret experiment left unfinished by her great-grandfather, the reclusive genius Albrecht Grimme and nearly destroys her home and the capitol of Switzerland.
Eight months later, Frances is still processing the consequences of her choices and the shocking revelations about her family that followed when she receives a personal invitation to a meeting of the esteemed European Society of Science and Invention. Finally, a chance to travel with her parents!
But when her train is hijacked by men with unknown motives, she’s forced to flee into the Black Forest, a vast wilderness in German territory, crawling with creeping shadows and fearsome beasts. She quickly learns there are forces at work more terrifying than she could have imagined, and that in order to defeat them, she may have to confront her own difficult truths head on.
What has been your inspiration for writing it?
If Frances and the Monster was my love letter to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Frances and the Werewolves of the Black Forest is a celebration of the monster genre she inspired in all its forms.
With this book, I wanted to continue to expand Frances’s world with new challenges, new friends and allies, new threats, and new locations. Her life has been so insular up to this point. She’s hardly left her house and never left her city. Aside from her friend Luca, she’s never interacted with kids her own age. How will she react to a diverse group of peers with vastly different perspectives and experiences than her own?
What was your favorite scene or part of your book to write?
I can say without hesitation that Chapter Thirty-One of Frances and the Werewolves of the Black Forest is the most personally satisfying writing I have ever done. It’s got everything: scares, sky-high stakes, humor, and heart. It’s also the culmination of several of the book’s themes, as well as the arcs of some of my favorite supporting characters. And it features one of the most tender moments in the series.
I am so proud of that chapter, and I’m both thrilled and terrified by the prospect of people reading it.
Where can your book be purchased?
Frances and the Werewolves of the Forest comes out August 22, but you can preorder now wherever you like to buy your books. There’s no wrong way to buy a book, but I always recommend visiting your local independent bookstore or ordering online from Bookshop.org. You can do exactly that using this link: https://bookshop.org/a/90738/9780063085817
Requesting the book from your local library is also a great way to support new releases when there’s no room left in the budget. (It’s also a great way to catch up on Frances’s first adventure in Frances and the Monster!)
To the Future Writer:
What advice would you give to aspiring authors who want to write a book?
The biggest challenge many new writers face is the sheer magnitude of completing that first draft. I remember feeling so accomplished and hopeful after writing the first few pages of Frances and the Monster—right up until I looked at my word count and realized I still had tens of thousands more words to go. It felt like looking up at a mountain so tall I couldn’t see the top of it. To climb felt impossible.
That all changed the moment I typed those most glorious of words: The End. Once I had finished my first draft, the project no longer felt so impossible. The mountain wasn’t endless after all—I was standing at the summit, looking back at all I had already accomplished.
So hang in there. Don’t let discouragement hold you back. Writing a novel is a huge undertaking, there’s no way around that. But it can be done. I’ve done it. And if you stick with it, you can too.
What’s next for you? Any events, upcoming pubs, etc.
I’ll be at the Barnes & Noble in Schaumburg, IL to celebrate the launch of Frances and the Werewolves of the Black Forest on September 2, then at Harvey’s Tales in Batavia, IL sometime in October. In November, I’ll be joining a bunch of other great middle grade authors at the NCTE Annual Convention in Columbus, OH for a panel titled Monsters in the Middle: Monster Fiction in the Middle Grade Classroom. And, of course, I’ll be visiting schools around the country throughout the 2023-24 school year. If you’re organizing a conference or event, or you’re an educator looking for engaging author visits, please reach out through my website at https://www.refetuma.com/visits.
Where can we find you:
What’s on your TBR list?
I recently finished Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet and The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty, and I’m about to start a novel I’ve been dying to crack open, The Overstory by Richard Powers. On the middle grade front, I’m very excited for Molly and the Mutants by Erik J. Slangerup, Nothing Else But Miracles, by Kate Albus, and Adam Rex’s new YA novel/graphic novel A Little Like Waking.