Novelist publishes fourth book

By Caroline Rosacker 

Brian Spielbauer, author of four successful novels with another one in the works, was born and raised in Guttenberg. He currently resides in Fayette, Mo., with his wife, Jennifer, and their two daughters, Sydney and Allie. He is employed as an agent at Endeavor Agency in Fayette. The sports enthusiast also coaches Fayette's high school basketball team and was a past college basketball coach and athletic director. He also has a passion for helping people attain new executive positions. "I like coaching and mentoring and hope to inspire more people to tell their stories through my writing," commented Spielbauer. 

"I have always enjoyed telling stories, and I loved The Lord of the Rings growing up," Spielbauer shared. "I wanted to write a similar tale, and I did that with my fantasy series, The Tales of Lemuria. My first books were fantasy, but my newest book, The Legacy of Faith, is historical fiction."

Spielbauer's published works are The Tales of Lemuria, a three-book series that includes The Demon's Chamber, The Three Charms, and The Child King, and his most recent publication, The Legacy of Faith. Concordia Publishing publishes his books. 

"As I mentioned earlier, The Lord of the Rings inspired my first books. My latest endeavor was from the family stories my father shared with me over Christmas break in 2017," he noted. "The Legacy of Faith covers the travels of the Tschohl, Rohner, and Spielbauer families from central Europe to Guttenberg in the mid-to-late 1800s.  The descendants of these families are plentiful throughout Clayton County and Grant County in Wisconsin. I greatly enjoyed thinking about and then writing about the trials they faced to decide to leave everything they ever knew and then to endure the trip across the ocean. After arriving in America, they either traveled up the Mississippi River from New Orleans or across the U.S. from New York on immigrant trains. There is very little to compare that to today." Spielbauer described the process for writing his current fictional work. He said, "I compiled my family history, which was greatly aided by the work already completed by several family members and information I located on ancestory.com. The most difficult task was to organize that information and make sure the facts were placed in chronological order for each family."

"It takes me about three months until I am ready to hand off my rough draft to my editor. He sends it back after about three months, after many rounds of edits and in the desired format," Spielbauer explained. "He gets a couple of copies printed off and we read through it several more times, and we still miss things something," he said with a laugh.  

"The Legacy of Faith contained approximately 40,000 words just as the structure of the story. I went through the piece again, adding color, description and quotes, and even added a character or two to fill needs, ending with about 60,000 words total," Spielbauer shared. 

"I try to write every morning at 5:30 for about an hour. If I don't do it then, it doesn't happen. I may be able to sneak in two or three hours on a Saturday, but that doesn't happen very often," he added. 

A second book is at the end of its three-month hiatus with the editor and will follow the historical cliffhanger. Spielbauer told The Press, "My goal is to work on the second book of this series and then immediately go into the second book of another series. It's called The Battle and is historical fiction as well."

The third book in the historical series will end where Living Arrows by Hildagarde Spielbauer Brooks, begins. "My aunt Hilda's book was my inspiration to begin writing. I was a college basketball coach at the time and was very nervous about what people would say. There are not a lot of college basketball coaches who write science fantasy," he chuckled. "I talk to students about how unnerved I was and encouraged them to be bold and sure in their endeavors."

Spielbauer feels separating fact from fiction will be the reader's biggest challenge with The Legacy of Faith. He expressed, "People are going to have a difficult time figuring out what is real and what isn't. Most of the stories are based on loose facts and elaborated for intrigue. This is not a history book, but it is certainly based on history and surrounded by it. There is romance, suspense, fights and battles, and international intrigue. And, of course, we get introduced to the wonderful small town of Guttenberg, surrounding communities, and Grant County, Wis."

The celebrated author experiences many emotions during the book writing process. "I need to laugh at the funny parts and get sad during the sad parts. If I don't, the reader won't experience those feelings either," he said. 

Spielbauer concluded our interview with a few encouraging words for would-be authors. He said, "You shouldn't write with the sole purpose of getting rich. It most probably will never happen. Write because you enjoy it and because you have a story worth telling. Even if you just print it yourself for friends and family to read, that's a pretty big deal. I am happier when I am writing a story – it rounds out my day and allows me to be creative. We are all more than our job. We should be anyway," he encouraged. 

Spielbauer's latest novel, The Legacy of Faith, will be