Help us welcome today Diane Zahler, author of The Thirteenth Princess a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses and A True Princess a retelling of The Princess and the Pea. (in my blog to read Ashley's review of A True Princess ).
Diane grew up in Ithaca, New York, where she spent most of her time reading children's books. She loved fantasy, but she especially loved fairy tales. In high school, she started working in the children's room of the public library, and kept reading fairy tales. After college, she went to New York City, got a job in children's book publishing and (what else?!) read more fairy tales before she finally decided to write her own! She loves to travel and often finds inspiration for her writing from the places that she visits.
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What made you decide to write fairy tale retellings?
I’ve loved fairy tales for as long as I’ve been a reader, and I also love a lot of the retellings I’ve read, especially the ones by Robin McKinley and Shannon Hale. So it was a natural fit for me when I started thinking about writing my own novels for young readers.
Would you consider a non-fairy tale retelling? Do you have any ideas?
I’m working on an idea now for a non-fairy tale retelling, but it’s in such an early stage that I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it (and I haven’t worked out the details).
Can you tell us anything about your current writing project?
I’ve finished a third retelling, Princess of the Wild Swans, which is based on The Wild Swans (versions by both Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers). And I’m partway through a fourth, which has a well-known fairy tale as its inspiration but goes off on some wildly different angles.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses has always been my favorite fairy tale, and I've thought about it a lot. But a thirteenth princess has never occurred to me. Where did the idea for Zita come to you from?
There’s not a lot to the original story, if you recall. Twelve princesses are cursed to dance until they die; they’re rescued by a soldier. Not much detail there. So I felt like I had a lot of freedom to play around with it. Fairy tales are often about abandonment and betrayal, so I wondered: what if there were another princess, but she wasn’t allowed to be part of the family? Zita is abandoned in plain sight, living in the servants’ quarters below her sisters’ bedchamber, but she never loses her desire to be connected with her family, and she never loses her determination to help them.
Is there a fairy tale you would love to retell, but haven't been able to find the right inspiration for? One that you are maybe working on, just waiting for everything to click?
I love Rapunzel. It’s been retold in various forms, but I still feel there’s a lot that can be done with it. It’s on the back burner for now, but maybe soon…
Are there any fairy tales that you absolutely do not want to retell?
Well, there are some that have been done either to death or so beautifully that I wouldn’t want to go there – Cinderella, for example, and Beauty and the Beast. And some fairy tales are just too weird or grotesque to approach, especially some of the lesser-known Grimm tales. What amazes me is how MANY fairy tales there actually are.
Check out this Wikipedia list! I could write a dozen a year and not run out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fairy_tales (Try Foundling-Bird or The Iron Stove for bizarre Grimm stories.)
Silly/Random questions:
~Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale?
Chocolate, without a doubt. But in another language, so it sounds princess-y: Suklaa (Finnish)? or Siocled (Welsh)?
~ Using that name, give us a line from your life as a fairy tale: I was named after the food of the gods, because my mother loved chocolate more than any other food. But I never managed to live up to the sweetness of my name.
~Best fairy tale villain and why? I started thinking about this and immediately wondered: Why are the villains mostly women? There’s Bluebeard, and the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, and Rumplestiltskin, if you’re looking for wicked males. But, though I don’t want to retell the story, the queen in Snow White has a malevolence all her own. It’s based on envy of her stepdaughter’s youth and beauty, which strikes me as particularly nasty. In the Grimms’ original tale, this villain was Snow White’s mother, not her stepmother, which makes her all the more evil.
~Favorite tale from childhood? Favorite tale as an adult? Least favorites? The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Rapunzel, as a child. As an adult, maybe Beauty and the Beast – one of the few with a heroine whose courage and love help her to save another. I’m not crazy about Jack and the Beanstalk or The Frog Prince (kissing a frog – ick. But in the original version, the princess throws the frog against a wall).
~If you could be any fairy tale character, or live through any fairy tale "happening," who/what would it be? If you consider A Thousand and One Nights a kind of fairy tale, I’d most like to try riding a flying carpet. Ever since reading E. Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet, it’s been my preferred mode of travel. So much easier and more romantic than the subway or JetBlue!
~Would you rather:
- — eat magic beans or golden eggs? Golden eggs, definitely — scrambled - — style 50ft long hair or polish 100 pairs of glass slippers? The hair, by a length. One long braid.
- — have a fairy godmother or a Prince Charming? A fairy godmother – I could wish for the prince, if I wanted him.
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Thank you so much for participating with us Diane! It's been a real pleasure to work with you!
We have a copy of A True Princess to giveaway to one lucky reader today! Diane was generous enough to provide us with a copy of the book (via the publisher) as well as some really neat bookmarks to go along with both A True Princess and her debut novel, The Thirteenth Princess.One person will win a copy of the book and a set of the bookmarks. Then, winners will be drawn for the remaining bookmarks.Rules:You must leave a MEANINGFUL comment on this post. Let Diane know you appreciate the time she took to contribute be involved with us.Include a way to be contacted.Open InternationallyEnds May 5th May 8th!