October is the perfect month to celebrate everything spooky, which means it's only right that we feature Black Rabbit Books' paranormal extraordinaire, Thomas Kingsley Troupe! Thomas has been writing for Black Rabbit Books for several seasons now, and the team has been in love with his tone and enthralled by his knack for the mysterious from the start. Check out our interview with him.

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself!

A: I was born and raised in Northeast Minneapolis, MN. I love orange Popsicles, playing video games, hunting for ghosts…oh, and reading. Also, writing books. I do love writing goofy books. I should mention that I have two boys of my own who are the coolest kids I've ever met. Their real names are top secret, but their nicknames are Saucy and Bubba.


Q: What are some of the books you've written for Black Rabbit? Do you have a favorite title or series?

A: I've written books about all kinds of robots for the Mighty Bots series, a bunch of books on How to Survive different scenarios, Rappin' Rhyme books like I'm some sort of rap star and a whole series of Extreme books about ghosts, monsters and fun stuff like that. My favorite series is probably the How to Survive series and the upcoming Paranormal Hunt series. They're fun because they pack in some facts about the creatures and situations, but I'm given the chance to write up some RIDICULOUS ways to survive and hunt for various monsters. It's like non-fiction and funny fiction all rolled up into a whole pile of fun and goofy books!


Q: What was your favorite thing about school as a kid?

A: Besides hanging out with my friends, I absolutely loved writing (big surprise!) and was constantly writing stories both for class and outside of class. Back then I was a more "serious" writer and wrote scary stories. One of them was called THE BOOGEYMAN and it didn't have a happy ending. Whoops.


Q: What inspires you to write children's books?

A: I'm inspired to write children's books because I loved reading from a very early age. That hasn't changed now that I'm an old guy. Truthfully, I really like the idea of kids reading something I wrote and learning something, laughing at a dumb joke I wrote and maybe, just maybe, inspiring them to get behind the keyboard and write something too! It's like the circle of life…expect, you know, books.