Author Q&A: Richard Rea Evans

Richard Rea Evans survived boarding school, art school, running a hostel for homeless men and failing to become a clergyman, and now lives with his wife Kyoko in an old cottage in the south-west of England where he writes short stories and nonsense verse, and potters about the garden muttering to himself while trying to think of a rhyme.

We sat down with Richard, author of Krumpfelbaum and the Seeds of Time, to talk about fantasy, language, and the unexpected places stories take us.

When did you first begin writing, and what drew you towards fantasy?
I’ve written bits and pieces – nonsense stuff, mostly – since I was at school, but things really took off once I retired and joined a local writing group, ‘The Scribblers’, God bless them.

But as to what drew me to fantasy – I suppose a quick answer is, “Because I have never properly grown up.” A more serious (if ponderous) answer could be, “What truly draws me is a constant yearning for a sort of depth, a stillness – for the silent mystery hiding at the core of each moment, PLUS joy in all things ridiculous that skip and chortle about on the surface; and maybe writing fantasy is my stumbling attempt to join the two things up together.”

Or, again, the answer is possibly that if I invent my own worlds then I won’t have to spend ages plodding through all that tedious research in order to make sure I’ve got my facts right!

“What draws me to writing is a constant yearning for a sort of depth, a stillness – for the silent mystery hiding at the core of each moment, plus joy in all things ridiculous that skip and chortle about on the surface.”

Mr Krumpfelbaum has a wonderfully distinctive name. How did you find it, and when did his character begin to take shape?
When I was a student, a friend and I used to write to one another using silly names; one of mine was ‘Pope Eli Z Crumblebottom XIV’, and thereafter my friend habitually called me ‘Crumblebum.’

During one session at my Scribblers writing group, we were asked to come up with names that might spark off a story, and suddenly there he was, old Crumblebum himself, large as life. And during the session he morphed into Krumpfelbaum, acquiring his bookshop and a collection of archaic languages on the way.

Which writers or books have most influenced your imagination?
I suppose I’d have to start with J R R Tolkien's The Hobbit (hearing it read by a man called David Davis during ‘Children’s Hour’ on the BBC).

Then, when I was at boarding school, one of the masters took a small group of us, sat us down in a darkened room and put on a recording of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milkwood, (with Richard Burton as First Voice). I was completely swept away by it. So maybe the fascination enters through the ear more than the eye? And two such wonderful, distinctive voices!

And also so many others, from Lewis Carol via Spike Milligan to Terry Pratchett (of course!)

"The details of the ordinary, mundane world – the world of clocks and number 47 double-decker omnibuses – can, with the smallest of tweaks, send you off into the wildest of parallel possibilities."

Why did you choose a labyrinthine bookshop as the starting point for this adventure? Is it inspired by a real place?
Why did I choose it? No idea; maybe it chose me! But yes, a dusty old maze of a real place – as though a second-hand bookshop were conjured out of the air by Dickens and inserted surreptitiously into the middle of Guildford High Street one day when nobody was looking.

The mysterious crate arrives at precisely “eleven-and-five-eighths”. How did you arrive at that detail, and what does it tell us about the world we’re entering?
Oh, it just seemed such an attractively silly time for a clock to strike; it sounds more like a hat size. And the details of the ordinary, mundane world – the world of clocks and number 47 double-decker omnibuses – can, with the smallest of tweaks, send you off into the wildest of parallel possibilities that still have roots in the everyday. You really do have to watch where you are treading.

"Words have lives of their own. They can escape from their contexts, they can overwhelm and sweep you away despite yourself, they can hide unregarded inside your skull and pop up again years later bearing strange fruit."

Words wander and bury themselves like seeds in this novel. What interested you about giving language a life of its own?
But words do have lives of their own! They are the not-very-trustworthy boots that thoughts wear in order to travel from one mind to another, but can so easily deliver the wrong message. They can escape from their contexts, they can overwhelm and sweep you away despite yourself, they can hide unregarded inside your skull and pop up again years later bearing strange fruit! Dangerous, magical things!

What does a typical writing day look like for you, and how do you keep track of your ideas?
I’m not sure I have a typical writing day – I’m basically a potterer. A story may sit there on my laptop and keep luring me back to it because I’m dying to find out what happens next. Or it’s like an infuriating crossword clue I've set myself that I’m determined to crack.

I keep track simply by continually re-reading what I’ve already written, and trying to make sure that everything hangs together in the end. No system at all, I’m afraid.

"If there is a theme, perhaps it is that the one you consider to be your enemy is ultimately not actually your enemy. Just another Snowman trying to find his way home."

Time travel can create some tricky storytelling puzzles. How did you establish its rules, and what was the hardest problem to solve?
Well, I tried not to cheat – not too much, anyway. Overall it was important that it all ‘worked’ and didn’t insult my credulity – it all had to fit in logically, everything in its proper place and time. I admit to allowing myself the odd inconsistency, such as the whole Trolloraptor episode not running in high-speed rewind as it should do; but then, as Trolloraptors appear to run sideways I suppose I can let myself get away with that.

The hardest problem was what tense to write things in! Especially as I tried at one point to rewrite everything in the present tense, and then my dear editor advised putting it all back into past tense again (thank you, Anna!) and I got myself into some real grammatical tangles in the process!

With ghost dragons, enchanted gardens and a two-headed winged cat, how did you decide which fantastical creations belonged in the story?
No active decision on my part! They simply emerged, I think. If they seemed to be productively comfortable where they were, I let ‘em stay.

Beneath the adventure are questions about memory, inheritance and sacrifice. Which of those themes became most important to you as you wrote?
Golly, did you find all that? I’m very happy for you. Someone else has told me that they too had found stuff I didn’t know I’d put in there.

If there is a theme, perhaps it is that the one you consider to be your enemy is ultimately not actually your enemy. Just another Snowman trying to find his way home.

Do you plan your stories in advance, or discover them as you go? Did anything in this novel take you by surprise?
Definitely not planned! They unfold (or fail to) as I go along. I have a folder of stories that never found a way out of themselves.

A surprise? Oh, yes. I had reached a decisive point where a crucial problem had emerged and I hadn’t a clue how to resolve it: and then one of the characters had a dream. Astonishing! That was the answer! And I honestly have no idea how that happened.

"My advice to writers? Edit, edit and edit. And then edit again, back and forth and back and forth. Find yourself a real editor to do the job properly. Oh yes, and read it out loud to yourself."

Without giving away any spoilers, which scene or character did you most enjoy writing, and why?
I loved exploring Krumpfelbaum’s bookshop. The ‘founding myth’ of the Grandmothers was fun, and provided quite a lot of material that to my surprise incorporated itself later on (thank you, Grannies!); and Cribble’s blossoming relationship with cabbages gave me joy.

What’s a piece of writing advice you’ve found useful, and one you’ve learned to ignore?
Useful advice: edit, edit and edit. And then edit again, back and forth and back and forth. And, if you are serious, find yourself a real editor to do the job properly. Oh yes, and read it out loud to yourself.

Otherwise, I realise now that I was blithely ignorant of all the good writing advice ever given, I’m afraid – I think I must have broken every rule available.

What are you working on next, and might there be more to discover in Krumpfelbaum’s world?
Odd bits of poetry (though it can’t really be called proper poetry because most of it rhymes), the occasional assault upon that folder of unresolved stories, and any day might set me off somewhere new.

More of Krumpfelbaum? Unlikely, but who knows? The world is such a very strange place…

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Krumpfelbaum and the Seeds of Time is publishing on November 5, 2026 under Atzei Rimon Horizons. Pre-order now