My Meet & Greet with Tad Williams

Books have always been a constant thread throughout my life and, together with music, they form my very own personal soundtrack. I’m sure I’m not alone in this — many avid readers love losing themselves in stories and immersing themselves in other worlds. Depending on the phase of life, books — and the people and places within them — leave a completely different impression. Some become permanently imprinted in memory, feeling like recollections of one’s own life. That’s how I feel about the Osten Ard series by Tad Williams, which I’ve read multiple times and which has become an integral part of my youth. So when I won a meet and greet with Tad Williams in Klett-Cotta’s Easter raffle earlier this year, I was overjoyed. But I was also curious — what kind of person is Tad Williams, and what would the encounter be like? Naturally, I don’t want to miss the opportunity to share a bit about that evening. I learned quite a lot — about his new Osten Ard cycle, but also about the man himself — and it was fascinating to hear Tad speak so candidly.

Although I read a great many books, I rarely go to readings or get the chance to meet authors in person. There’s a simple — and rather regrettable — reason for that: most of the authors I truly admire and appreciate have been dead for at least a hundred years. I do read contemporary works now and then, but I find the authors of past centuries especially intriguing as people. Meeting someone like Balzac or Dumas would be the very first trip I’d take if I had a time machine. It may sound presumptuous, but a good book doesn’t automatically make me want to peek behind the curtain. Tad Williams is one of the few exceptions for me — because his books have run like a red thread through my past, and he has always managed to convey atmosphere and connection through his stories. His characters and settings feel real, and the memories of, for instance, Simon pausing at the Stone of Farewell on the Sesuad’ra, or sheltering from a storm with Miriamel in that crumbling house, feel genuine — imbued with emotion and truth.

Since that time, more than twenty years ago, when I first held one of his books in my hands, Tad Williams has been incredibly productive. I’ve devoured all of his fantasy novels — most of them sprawling multi-volume works spanning thousands of pages, full of countless characters set in richly imagined worlds. Yet somehow, I always return to his Osten Ard books. For me, they’ve become the benchmark for fantasy. What The Lord of the Rings is for many, or what Harry Potter means to others, I find in the Osten Ard cycle. Often it depends on the phase of life — when one happens upon just the right book, at just the right time, and gets completely swept away by it.

I’ve already blogged about the Osten Ard series, and also written about the first volume of the new Osten Ard cycle, The Witchwood Crown. If you’d like to learn more about Tad Williams’ books, I recommend reading those two posts — there, I try to give a deeper impression of the cycle.

As the winner of the meet & greet, I got to meet Tad an hour before the reading began — and he really took his time. I had no idea what a meet & greet would be like — the term, after all, comes from the music world, where it’s often more of a fan-groupie thing. But meeting Tad was nothing like that — it was a relaxed, engaging conversation. Although he’s quite a well-known figure in the fantasy world, he’s completely free of arrogance, and our talk was one of equals. He’s also someone who genuinely enjoys storytelling (which, of course, is his job), and it’s great fun to listen to him. Later, during the reading, he spoke with humor and warmth about his books and answered questions from the audience. He struck me as a very kind, genuine person — and you could tell how truly happy he was to meet readers who love his work.

His wife, Deborah Beale, was also there — she’s the one to thank for the continuation of the Osten Ard cycle. She kept asking Tad when he’d finally consider writing a sequel. There was also that prophecy at the birth of Prince Josua’s twins that was never revisited, which many fans took as a hint of more to come. Apparently, that was a misunderstanding — but Deborah didn’t give up. When Tad tried to argue against the idea, he kept realizing that a sequel could actually work — and that he already had plenty of ideas for one. Tad Williams published the first Osten Ard books in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since The Dragonbone Chair, about thirty years have passed — and that’s exactly the time span he chose for his characters as well. Readers now return to a world that feels familiar, yet has changed greatly — just as Tad’s own life has changed. When I told him I couldn’t imagine Simon and Miriamel as grandparents, he laughed and quoted something that Oscar Wilde once expressed perfectly: “The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.”

During both the meet & greet and the reading, Tad also talked quite a bit about his writing process. I found it fascinating that he takes almost no notes — for a cycle spanning roughly 3,500 pages, he keeps fewer than ten pages of notes, mostly just for structure and scene balance. The real work, he says, happens in his mind — as he thinks through the story long before typing a word. He begins with a rough idea and only a vague notion of the ending; his preliminary thoughts unfold fully during the writing itself. For instance, he had long planned the scene where Simon meets his fate with the wheel, using the wheel as a symbol throughout, but he left the exact form of the scene open until the end. His great talent, I think, lies in maintaining an overview — keeping track of all the plotlines, characters, motivations, and histories, and arranging them in time and space — all in his head. Anyone familiar with the Osten Ard books knows that multiple storylines run in parallel, often intersecting, and must align perfectly in content and timing.

Interestingly, Tad doesn’t really think of his works as a series, but as one single, very long story. The division into, say, four volumes simply arises from the fact that such a long text won’t fit into one book. That’s exactly how I experience them — as one long, immersive tale that spans a vast arc. Out of many small scenes, moments, and encounters, something greater emerges on a second level. His books have always had a kind of emergent quality to me — from countless descriptions, settings, characters, and dialogues arises something more than the sum of its parts.

I also found his answer to why he’s so productive very authentic. He joked about his hungry children and dog, saying he simply has bills to pay — he hasn’t yet had the fortune of a George R. R. Martin. Financial motivation seems to crop up for him again and again — for instance, The War of the Flowers was written to make up for the failed Shadowmarch online project. His first book, Tale of Tailchaser, was written late at night after he came home from his two jobs. Considering his background, it’s understandable that income plays a role for him. But then, monetary necessity has often spurred great authors on.

It was also fascinating to hear how much research Tad puts into his work, despite being a fantasy author. His office, he said, is filled with stacks of nonfiction books on a wide range of topics — such as the Thirty Years’ War or religious studies, both of which influence his worlds. The different races of Osten Ard clearly draw inspiration from real-world cultures of past centuries. Combined with his imagination, this creates a vivid picture of his peoples and their histories. What I always find striking is the deep sense of age in these cultures and their places — their long history that surfaces again and again, whether in locations like the Hayholt built upon Asu’a, the ruins of the Sithi cities, or in characters like Utuk’ku.

Before starting his new cycle, Tad reread his Osten Ard books — apparently for the first time since writing them. Understandably so — after spending so much time immersed in them, he was glad to set them aside. There’s probably little benefit in rereading your own work anyway. Amusingly, though, it turns out that his most devoted fans often know the books better than he does. During his Shadowmarch online project — which, ahead of its time, embraced the idea of crowdfunding before Kickstarter even existed — a dedicated community formed around him, and he’s been in close contact with them ever since. Some of those early readers still correspond with him, and he occasionally asks them detailed questions about his own Osten Ard lore!

Another piece of good news: there will also be a continuation of The Dragons of Ordinary Farm. The third and final volume is still outstanding, and Deborah has already begun working on drafts. I plan to read them to my little frogs one day — though that’ll take a while yet. So Deborah and Tad still have some time.

He has also finished the second volume of his new trilogy, so I’m confident that the story will continue next year. He’s impressively fast and productive — especially compared to authors like George R. R. Martin or Patrick Rothfuss, whose pace has been glacial for years. Tad compared it to preparing Christmas dinner — the mother spends days cooking, and in fifteen minutes everyone’s eaten and moved on. I can imagine it must be frustrating to spend countless hours writing a book that readers devour in no time, only to immediately ask when the next one is coming. But in a way, that’s also wonderful — it shows that all the effort was well worth it.

During the reading, someone in the audience — likely a fellow writer — asked about his preferred writing software. He uses good old Microsoft Word and emphasized again that, for him, the creative process begins long before typing. By the time he’s at the keyboard, most of the story is already worked out in his head. Writing things down and discarding them would be too time-consuming — he prefers to test ideas through thought experiments instead.

Another interesting fact: Tad used to draw illustrations himself. His book The Sorcerer’s Apprentice includes several of his own drawings. For him, visualization is an essential element — colors and landscapes play a major role — and I think that this visual inclination is what creates that vivid “movie in your head” effect that his books evoke so strongly.

In summary, the evening was truly wonderful — informative, entertaining, and inspiring. It’s a strange feeling to meet someone whose imagined worlds you’ve spent so much time in, and yet who is, in reality, a complete stranger — and somehow not. After all, a book is something deeply personal, filled with the author’s spirit. My impression is that Tad is a warmhearted man who loves to tell stories, and who isn’t so far removed from Simon, the character he created — a character I feel quite connected to. And so, I had him sign my twenty-year-old copy — the book I loved as a young nerd and still enjoy leafing through today, reminiscing about those early reading days.

If you don’t have the chance to attend one of Tad Williams’ readings for his new novel, you can join the live stream on LovelyBooks on October 19. The Stuttgart event will be broadcast live at 7:30 p.m.