Systematic Student:
interview

Today we are pleased to have joining us Marissa Meyer, author of Cinder, a futuristic retelling of Cinderella. Guys! Be excited! Cinder is a 2012 debut, and a little birdie on the inside tells me (Misty) it's fabulous! Make sure to stop back on Friday for a guest post from Marissa!

Now let's get down to business. "Serious" Questions:
~Can you tell us a little bit about Cinder and the series?Gladly! CINDER is a young adult futuristic retelling of Cinderella. In it, Cinder, a 16-year-old cyborg mechanic, must piece together her mysterious past in order to protect her country from an impending war. It's the first in a four-book series, each of which revolves around a different fairy-tale-inspired heroine (Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White), as they join forces to save the world and find their happily-ever-afters. CINDER is scheduled to release in early 2012.

~Why fairy tales? What is it that calls to you, personally, as a writer, and why do you think readers connect to them the way they do?
I’ve always loved fairy tales. When I was growing up, I loved them for the romance, the magical kisses, the dresses, the princes in their fancy castles. Now I’m drawn to them for their timelessness—these are story archetypes that have been retold and recycled in 8 billion different ways, yet authors and artists and movie directors are still coming up with new ways to tell them. And because they still relate to issues that every society deals with, whether it’s childhood neglect a la Hansel and Gretel or just wanting to improve your social status a la Cinderella—these stories hold as much meaning for us now as they did in the time of the Grimm Brothers.

~What’s your favorite scene you’ve ever written? EVER ever? Gosh, that’s a lot of scenes. Can I say every single kiss? I’m a big fan of kissing scenes. The fun part of writing a four-book series with four different heroines who have four different romances is that there’s lot of opportunity for great kissing! Book 2: SCARLET (Little Red Riding Hood) will have some particularly smoldering ones.

Quickfire, Silly and Random stuff:
~Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale? I love this question, because I was tempted at one point to call my Rapunzel character “Arugula”! I ended up settling on “Cress” though, which is also a type of lettuce. If I were in a fairy tale, I think my odd name would be something geeky and literary, like maybe Pencil or Comma.

~ Using that name, give us a line from your life as a fairy tale: The fairy godmother waved her magic wand and Pencil found herself with this a real live book deal—a dream come true! She was about to retire to Hawaii and do nothing but lie on the beach and drink fruity cocktails for the rest of her happily ever after... when it occurred to her that she still had to write the rest of the books. And back to work the princess went.

~Best fairy tale villain and why? I’m partial to Rumpelstiltskin. He’s sly, crafty, can actually spin straw into gold (quite the feat!), and goes after what he wants. I also love that the story leaves open a big mystery: why does he want the queen’s firstborn at all? It could be very cruel and awful (maybe he plans to eat it!) or more sympathetic (maybe he just wants a family).

~Favorite tale from childhood? Favorite tale as an adult? Least favorites? I always loved The Little Mermaid—it was my favorite Disney movie as a kid, and I only fell in love with it more once I read the Hans Christian Andersen version and learned how truly tragic the story was. It has so much depth to it (pun kind of intended). As for now... it’s so hard to choose! Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are probably neck and neck for my all-time favs. As for least favorite... I don’t know that I really have one, although something about the end of Hansel & Gretel always bugged me. I felt like the dad got off way too easy in that tale!

~If you could be any fairy tale character, or live through any fairy tale "happening," who/what would it be? Cinderella’s ball! I love big beautiful dresses and dancing and food!

~Would you rather:
- — live under a bridge with a troll, or all alone in a high tower? Tower, definitely! Just think how much reading you’d get done.

- — ride everywhere in a pumpkin carriage (messy) or walk everywhere in glass shoes (uncomfortable)? I’ll take the carriage, with hopes that the fairy godmother had the sense to scrape all the guts out of it.

- — have a fairy godmother or a Prince Charming? Between getting engaged and getting my book deal for CINDER both in the past few months, I think I already have both!

Thanks so much for the fun interview, Ashley and Misty! Oh course! We were happy to have you, and can't wait for Cinder! Thanks for stopping by! So who else is super excited for Cinder? *raises hand* Stop back on Friday for a special guest post from Marissa Meyer. And don't forget to leave her some love in the comments!

Shortly after I finished reading One Child by Jeff Buick, I had the opportunity to interview the author. If you missed that (ridiculously long) review, you can read it HERE. It had to be a little long, because I talked about both the book, and the unique reading experience it offered. Because, Enthrill, the brand new publishing house that created it definitely brought changes to the way we view publishing.

Jeff Buick is not only an author, but he is also part of the Enthrill team. So, when I talked to him about his book, and the publishing method, I also got to talk to him about Enthrill and what will happen next. It's been a little while since that interview, (sorry about the posting delay... Life has been seriously crazy lately), but I'm finally getting it up! It was a pretty long phone call, and I can only write so fast, so much of what he said is slightly paraphrased (I warned him, and he's okay with that) but the point of each answer, what he's trying to convey is still there. It was a great conversation, and I'm really excited to see what Enthrill will be coming out with next!
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Jeff: Everything said by Jeff will look like this.
Me: Everything said by me will look like this. This is to avoid confusion, and so I don't have to keep specifying who is doing the talking.

We started off with the typical niceties:

It's really good to talk to you! Thanks so much for agreeing to this interview!

No problem. It's great to talk to you. Do you have giant potatoes in Idaho?
Yes.

(Anyway... Now to the actual stuff...)

Enthrill has been a great publishing experience. It's been a lot of work, but we are really looking forward to the response we've been getting from everyone. It's not easy to change the publishing model, so it's especially interesting to watch the reactions we've been getting, and they are pretty positive so far.
It's also interesting, because at Enthrill, we are picking social conscious thrillers to publish. It's not an accident. The issues in the books we're publishing, like the war in Afghanistan for One Child were picked specifically.
So, did you decide on the issues that you wanted to talk about before you wrote the book?

Somewhat. For this book, Wayne Logan, the CEO wanted to bring up Afghanistan specifically. This was the driving factor behind One Child. Then, we came up with high frequency trading, put that on the table and tossed that idea around for a while. It was definitely a collaborative effort. It is my book, but everyone put in some effort to get it where it is now.
So, where did this different publishing model come from? It's not anything I'd heard of before.

I currently have five books published in New York, which have done well in the US and Canada. The way that these publishers work is to put books on the shelves, and hope they sell. I've always been willing to put some of my own money down, for book signings and other marketing techniques to get my books out there.
I came up with a new business model to get more of my books out there, but it didn't work for my publisher and that likewise didn't work for me. So, we parted on amicable terms and I decided to try something on my own.
I have 13 books waiting to be published, and I feel like people started parachuting into my life.
Cameron is this business/sports and entertainment guy.
Kevin is the marketing guy. He's absolutely brilliant. He put the whole One Child marketing plan together, all the press releases, everything.
Celia is our project manager.
We all sat down together to talk about what we could do as a small publisher to stand out in the crowd. If you don't have something that sets you apart, these big houses will run right over you. So, we decided to do something drastically different. We'd publish a thriller dealing with issues that are facing us NOW. So, instead of a two minute news clip, or two pages in the newspaper, we devote 400 pages to this issue, which raises awareness and actually allows you to really understand the issues here.
Writing about a current topic does create some time constraints though. Instead of spending 18-24 months working on all stages of book development, we did everything in about 5 months, to keep all the information current and accurate. We ran into a few problems that way, it's hard to get ARCs out in advance when you only have 5 months to work on something like this. But, for every person that reads this book, it's one more that understands the war in Afghanistan.
We've already had three people come to us with an idea for a future book, and ask us if we could write about it, and they are all worthwhile ideas.
So, are you interested in getting other authors on board with this project?

Definitely! This is one of our big pushes, one of our biggest goals. We want to take authors who can really get into what we're doing and get them on board. It will have to be an author who can write fairly quickly, because we've got to keep the issues current, but we're definitely interested in new authors.
There is so much talent out there, that no one's really familiar with yet. I went to ThrillerFest and couldn't believe all the talent there that no one's heard about yet. So, we'd love to be able to take about 2 authors a year and get them out there.
One of the keys for them wanting to work with us, is that once we get them on board with us, we immediately start the marketing process. The average amount a publisher will put behind a book is about $2,000 but we are willing to put $500,000 to $1 million behind you, right up front.
So, do you have the next Enthrill project planned?

We have about three possibilities right now. We need to make a decision on them soon, so we can get started on them, but whichever idea we decide on, the end result will be pretty cool.
What type of research do you do for your books?

I do a lot of research for my books. If I had been able to find the time, I would have gone to Afghanistan myself to research what it's like over there for my books. I didn't have time, but I am lucky enough to be connected to people who were able to give me a lot of information.
I talked to a lot of military guys who had been on the ground over there, and people with higher ranks, colonels and the like. I talked to all of them about what it's really like over there and not just as soldiers on the bases, but also outside the safety of the wire and the real issues that are facing everyone involved in the conflict in Afghanistan. That's where a lot of the information Russel Matthews reports on came from. They talked about the corruption over there and the mistrust between the people, the government and the troops. I used a reporter and an american soldier to convey all of this to my readers, and get across the message that this war isn't really about religious ideology. The Taliban are really just drug lords and drug runners, and that's where the crux of all this conflict stems.
The scenes in New York were different. I never really felt connected to this portion of the story the way I did with the Afghanistan scenes.
I actually agree with you here. I felt more connected and concerned about the characters in Afghanistan that I did the New York characters.

Ya. But, I did do my research for this portion of the book as well. I think that high frequency trading is really dangerous, and it's something that needs to have more controls and regulations placed on it. What happened to the market in my book is a possibility. HFT is highly volatile and I think it's important to bring it up, to get us thinking about the future here and what could happen. It actually did happen back in May. It gets ugly.
Every time I go to New York, I see these guys in $1000 suits and they are never the ones hurting. They play with other people's money and it doesn't touch them. I wanted to lay some of that out.
The publishing model for One Child was incredibly unique. I've never heard about anything like it before. Obviously, this isn't going to be Enthrill's only project. Are you planning on publishing your future projects the same way, or do you have other ideas for future projects?

Our goal right now is to be a bit of a moving target. We've heard from some of the big publishing houses, and we know we are being watched by them now. We talked to them at BookExpo, and they are actually showing a lot of interest. But, I imagine that most of that interest is so that they can begin to incorporate this into their publishing model.
So, we know that we need to be always moving and advancing our own model. We've decided to be a moving target. We will never just stand still, we will be small, agile, fun and smart.
Is there anything else you'd like to share about Enthrill or One Child?
We've covered just about everything, but I would like to reiterate that I do think One Child is a worthwhile book. It has value to the story. I hope that anyone who reads it will pass it along. It's nice to make money, of course, but more than that, it's also nice for someone to read my book, and understand the issues better.
Switching gears now, when did you decide that you wanted to write and how did you settle on writing thrillers?

About 12 years ago, I sat down and decided that I wanted to write a book. I started by writing a Young Adult book for my youngest son, and I followed that with a second YA book. They were received well, but by that time, I had already moved on to writing thrillers for adults.
Then, about 6 years ago, Dorchester publishing happened. One week, there was nothing. I was just writing and hoping. And then they came and say Hey, we want to publish your book. It was my 8th book written. I hadn't published a word before, but I just kept going. I just kept writing and hoping.

I know that this is probably an impossible question, but do you have a favorite book that you've written?

No, not really. They are just each so different. I have this back log of books I want to publish, and each one has value. I know that there are going to be people who connect differently to each book. So, I can't really say that I have a favorite.

What is your favorite book or genre? What book or author has most influenced you and your writing?

Leon Uris. He had some real talent, some major writing skills, a skill level I would say is unmatched by most writers. He can present both sides of a conflict equally, allowing the reader to fully understand both sides of the issue. That really takes a lot of talent.
I generally read thrillers. I also read biographies, a lot of suspense and mystery but I also like the literary fiction, like Three Cups of Tea or The Kite Runner. I also like learning the story behind why books were written. Some of the stories you hear are pretty amazing.
There are all kinds of serendipitous things out there waiting for you. If you find one, don't push against the flow. Keep doing the best you can, and at some point things will break for you and start to work out.

That's so great. Thank you again for taking the time to talk to me today. I really appreciate your time and everything you've shared with me.
Not a problem. Thank you for the interview and the review of One Child.

I'm ducking my head in shame as I say this but... I liked the movie more than the book. And the movie wasn't even all the great (although I did enjoy it). And they changed a lot. But, I know why I preferred the movie, and I'll include that in my review.

What story am I talking about you ask? The Invisible by Mats Wahl. I'll talk about the book first...

The story itself had a lot of potential. The book starts with Hilmer going to class. It doesn't take him long to realize that no one seems able to see him. Then, a police officer comes into the classroom to announce that Hilmer has disappeared, and anyone with information should come forward. Hilmer is confused and concerned. He decides to follow the officer to determine anything he can about what is going on. He panics as he realizes that he can't remember anything from the day he disappeared. After that, other than a few disjointed, awkward paragraphs, we are no longer listening to Hilmer, and are instead following the police officer, Detective Fors, and it's his thoughts we hear.

Once we switch narrators, the book loses whatever momentum and appeal it had. There is absolutely no sense of urgency to the story. Everything meanders calmly from one place to another. This tempo is fine in certain stories, and at times, it can actually enhance the reading experience. But no one wants to read a meandering story about a boy who has disappeared and it is assumed that someone made him disappear. Every interview was the same — You are looking for the boy? — Yes, do you know anything? — No, can't say that I do. — Let me know if you think of anything. — Ok. — (SHORT TIME LATER, same person) You knew about this--seriously important piece of information--before?! — Umm, Yes... — Why didn't you tell me?! — I didn't know if it was important, and I didn't want to bring it up... It could cause unnecessary trouble, ya know? Don't make a big deal about it... It could be nothing. Wouldn't want to cause concern now and make the tourists think we were a bad sort, ya know?

None of the townspeople seem to care about this missing boy. Other than Fors, none of the police officers seemed overly concerned about it either, which is shocking because they suspect that someone killed him. It took forever for them to get the dog out to track the scent, and they made a big deal about sending anyone else out there to help. It just seemed ridiculous and bla. No one wants to read how unconcerned a town is when a local boy shows up missing, especially when all the information they have makes it pretty clear that it is very unlikely he would have chosen to leave on his own.

The book was dull, unimaginative and mostly a waste of time. It was originally written in Swedish, and some of the pacing problems I noticed could have come from the translation, but I'll never know and it just wasn't a great read. It wasn't horrible, there just isn't much to recommend the book. It's a great idea, with great potential but the book did nothing with either. This is probably the only time I will say this, but do yourself a favor and just watch the movie instead... (Lightning is now going to strike me down in my hypocracy, but seriously... It's worth it this time...)

I know that this is going to make me sounds ethnocentric, but I liked the movie better because they made it more American, and more something that I could relate to. The movie also focuses more on the missing boy, and we follow him as he desperately tries to figure out what happened to him, where his body is, why no one can see him, and what he could possibly do to save himself. They changed the actual motivation behind the attack as well as the reaction of his assailant, and they fixed the pacing problems. We actually care about Nick as a person (they changed his name.) and not just as Detective Fors' current assignment. Nick still can't remember what happens and is really confused. At first, he thinks he is dead and it takes him a little while to realize that he is still alive, somewhere. The scene with the bird when Nick realizes his body is still alive is one of my most favorites.

The movie really is quite a bit different from the book, but I can't help but think that each change is an improvement. I know I just committed like, the cardinal sin of being a reader/book lover, but I had a really hard time relating and being drawn into the book, but the movie was quite good, rather suspenseful and definitely kept my attention the whole time.

Have any of you read the book or seen the movie? Or both? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! (And please, don't hate me! I always prefer the book to the movie. I'm allowed this one time, right?!)

A few days ago, I posted an interview with author Allan R. Shickman who wrote Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure and Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country. (You can also view my review HERE.)

When I was contacted by Bonnie with Earthshaker Books to review these two books, she also offered a set of SIGNED books to giveaway as well. So, as promised, this is the post where I offer one of you lucky readers the chance to win a set of these two books.

And, I've got to tell you, they are a lot of fun to read. I enjoyed them a lot. Reading them, I would say that I think the ideal age group for this book are 10-13 year old boys. Yup, that's right. This is a boy book, and as readers, we all know how hard it is to find those, especially in the historical fiction genre.

These books were a lot of fun to read, have great characters and would be great to keep, or to pass along to that young boy you really want to pick up a book. So, what do you have to do to win? Not much. Not much at all.

Just leave me a comment with your email address below. No extra entries this time or anything like that. Just a comment with your email address so I can contact you if you win.

The contest will run from today, August 19 until September 5 at 11:59 pm. I will contact the winner sometime that Monday, and will give you 48 hours to respond. If I don't hear back from you, I'll draw a new name.

Good luck to you all! They really are a lot of fun to read!

I recently read and reviewed Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure and it's sequel, Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country. (If you missed that, you can find my review HERE.)

I recently conducted an interview with the author, Allan Richard Schickman about his novels and am delighted to share his responses with you! You can also find out more about Allan and his books on this website. (in my blog.)
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First, I would like to thank Allan Shickman for being willing to answer some questions. I really enjoyed reading his novels and am excited to have this chance to talk with him. The pleasure is all mine. I find to my surprise that I just love to talk about myself and my work.
So, have you always known you wanted to be a writer? Or is it something that just kind of happened? You have it exactly right. It just sort of happened. As a student I liked to write, and tried my hand at it from time to time. As a professor I wrote scholarly articles, and most of those journals have very high standards. It was an honor to be published in any one of them. Only upon retirement did I attempt a fictional book. Once I wrote that first chapter I was hooked.
Because I am a reader and I love getting great book recommendations, especially from authors I enjoyed, what are some of your most favorite books? I have always been a lover and student of the classics. Once I find a book I like, I am apt to read it several times over a period of years. Dostoyevsky is my favorite. I read Crime and Punishment when I was sixteen, and I still reread it from time to time. Later in life I discovered Thomas Hardy. I love The Mayor of Casterbridge. Twain’s Huckleberry Finn was one book when I was young, and quite another, richer, book now that I’m older. One never really knows a book until he has read it three times. In that, it’s like a symphony or an opera.
What would you say has been the most influential book or literary experience for you and your writing? Hard question. The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky taught me how complex, contradictory, and downright funny human beings can be. Shakespeare and Milton taught me that language can roar and thunder, and stir the imagination.
Your bio mentions that you were an Art History Professor for years. How did you end up writing a historical fiction novel about the Prehistoric era? That seems like quite the jump. It is not really such a jump. Prehistoric people produced art. I studied it and their possible reasons for producing it. Some of that was in the back of my mind when I wrote the Zan-Gah novels. But there is a lot nobody knows. For all we know, women, not men, did those famous cave paintings. So I mixed knowledge with imagination.
How much research went into writing these two novels? Some. I already knew a little about prehistoric art and life. I needed to learn about slings, and about fishing by hand. I researched twins in primitive societies, and discovered that such societies were sometimes terribly frightened by the birth of twins. They would kill them and their mother (never their father). I used that fear in my books. I also went to a marvelous cavern, Onondaga, in my own cave-rich state of Missouri. I was the only guy in the whole cave who was taking notes. Eyeless salamanders! Cool.
We met a lot of interesting tribes with very complex and different ways of life. Were each of these tribes something out of your imagination, or were they based on actual tribes from history? Mostly imagination. There were no wasp people that I know of, but I did not make up totemism—the belief that a clan is related to an animal and shares some of its qualities. Why not have a people that models itself after stinging wasps?
What sort of evidence and artifacts (if any) do we really have about this era? We have a lot. Whole volumes are written about cave paintings, petroglyphs, sculpture, etc. We have very fat, bulbous steatopygous figures assumed to be models of fertility. I hinted that Siraka-Finaka might have been shaped like the Venus of Willendorf (aw, go ahead and google it), but I didn’t push the idea very hard.
There were some amazing characters in these novels—really strong and well-defined. It made me really glad there was a sequel, because it meant I was able to read more about them. However, the first book does end in a pretty comfortable spot. Was it always your intention to write a sequel to Zan-Gah, or is that a decision that came later. Thanks for “amazing.” I like “amazing.” However, I never intended to write a sequel, but some of my teen friends and relatives encouraged me to do so. The thing is, you can’t write anything until you get an idea. Then you slowly develop it, and put leaves on the tree, so to speak. The second book gave me a chance to develop characters introduced in the first, and work on new ones too. It gives me great satisfaction to think that my readers take an interest in my fictional characters, and want to read more about them.
Any plans for a third Zan-Gah adventure? Yup.
Speaking of future plans, do you have a current work-in-progress? If so, are there any details you can share about it with us? I am working on a third Zan-Gah book, but I am reluctant to talk too much about it. The story continues with Dael's self-imposed exile, as he seeks some sort of redemption or resolution of his life. He will go to live with the crimson people (introduced already in Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country). I think I will call it Dael and the Painted People. But first I have to write it.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with us today? I ask what an author has no right to insist on, that folks read the Zan-Gah books with a little care. It isn’t a race. If you don’t feel the books, you haven’t read them.
Thank you again for answering my questions today. I really appreciate it. Just one last question before we go (because I know which I prefer and it's always an interesting question) Do you prefer wearing shoes or going barefoot? I always shower, swim, and go to bed barefoot. Any other time, I am shod.
Thank you too. ____________________________________________________
How wonderful! I'm definitely excited for this third Zan-Gah novel. And, I totally googled that statue.:) Also, I am going to be offering a signed copy of each of these books to one lucky reader in the next few days so stayed tuned! Be sure to comment and let me know what you think!

So, I've been gone most of this week — out of town with no internet — so I haven't done much blogging. I'm hoping to correct that for next week. I've got a bunch of new stuff I want to try, so I'm excited to get back into things.

If you are visiting from the hop, Welcome! I'm glad to see you! Be sure to leave your blog url in the comments if you do visit so that I can return the favor! Also, feel free to enter my giveaway! It's a great book, and it's open for another few days! You know you want to!:)

I've also got some great things planned for the upcoming weeks. Another giveaway ready to go and a few author interviews as well. It should be pretty great, so stayed tuned!

Thanks to both Parajunkee and Crazy for Books for hosting these great memes! I have a lot of fun with them, and can't wait to get hopping around!

Alright everyone, here it is!

My interview with Jennifer Echols, the wonderful author of Forget You! Click HERE to read my review!

Jennifer was kind enough to agree to an interview after I read and loved Forget You. She is also the author of several other books for teens, including Going to Far, another romantic drama, and several romantic comedies, including Major Crush, and The Ex Games.
You can learn more about Jennifer and her books at her website, found HERE.

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First, I would like to say a huge thank you to Jennifer for agreeing to take part in this interview. It's great to have this chance to talk with you.

Ashley, I really appreciate the interview. Thank you!

So, when did you first start writing stories?

I think I was working on my first novel in third grade or so. My mom was reading Watership Down, which is about rabbits. My novel was about squirrels.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Have you always wanted to be a writer?

I was interested in writing, art, and music, and I pursued all three into college. My first college major was music education and composition. I wanted to be a composer and a high school band director. I was so interested in music intellectually, but I just wasn’t good enough. Writing was a creative outlet I felt much more comfortable with. In fact, I wrote a short story about band for the college literary magazine, people seemed to like it much better than any music I’d ever written, and I never looked back.

Why do you write young adult novels? Was that a conscious choice, or something that just sort of happened?

I finished writing my first novel when I was 20 and still reading YA myself. After that I wrote YA and adult, back and forth, but I guess YA was a part of me when I got my start and I never left. I still think YA novels are some of the best books out there.

Do you have any plans or desire to switch over to the Adult side of the aisle?

Since selling my first YA novel, I have written three adult novels, but they haven’t sold. Every time this happens, it breaks my heart, but publishing is a hard business and I knew this going in.

You already have several published novels out. Both comedic and dramatic. Were there any unique challenges to writing Forget You that you hadn't come across before?

This book is probably the one that’s most personal to me. The characters and events are fictitious, but I have felt all Zoey’s pain before. I have been that good girl who makes bad decisions. So I’m finding it a little harder than usual to share this story and listen to what other people say about it and about her.

Which of your books was the most challenging for you to write?

Endless Summer, because it is a sequel, and everything had to match what I’d written in The Boys Next Door.

Do you ever just sit back and think, "Wow. I'm a writer!"

Yes I do. Every single day I make sure that I reflect on the long, hard road I traveled to get here, and I am thankful that I finally have the career I always wanted.

I love getting new book recommendations. So, I have to ask. What do you read? What are your favorites?

Kiss It by Erin Downing and The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting were absolutely wonderful. And I hope everybody will check out the amazing When the Stars Go Blue by Caridad Ferrer, which is coming out in November. One of the coolest things about being an author is that you get to read other writers’ novels before they’re published!

Are there any books you can identify that have had the most impact on you as a person, and as a writer?

The best class I ever took was an American Moderns course at Auburn University. We read The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner, The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway, A Lost Lady by Willa Cather, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and the collected poems of T. S. Eliot. Every one of these books made me see the possibilities of writing in a new way. The only book we read that wasn’t new to me was The Great Gatsby, and this wonderful professor made even that seem brand new. Have you ever taken a class like that?

Do you have a current work-in-progress? If yes, is there anything you can share with us about it now?

I’m finishing my next romantic drama for MTV Books. It will be published in July 2011, and it is called This Novel Has Such A Fabulous Title That I Can’t Even Tell You, or possibly OMG This Is The Best Novel Title Ever. My editor and I haven’t chosen which one yet but I will let you know.

Well, thank you so much Jennifer for answering all my questions!
My final question, just because I love them, what is your favorite pair of shoes?

In 2005 I ran my first 10K and the end of my middle toe kind of fell off. It was just a really bad blister. So I went to a local running store and said to the owner, “Please choose a pair of shoes for me that will not make my toe fall off,” and he did and I am on my fifth pair. They are Nike Equalons. This is probably not what you were asking, LOL!
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This was an awesome interview! Thanks again Jennifer for taking the time to talk to share with us! I'm looking forward to your new release, and to picking up some copies of your older books. And, if I ever decide to run a 10K, I'm definitely going to be looking for some Nike Equalons!

Like I promised, I'm back to offer you a chance to win Forget You by Jennifer Echols !! In case you missed my review, you can read it here.

I have been offered a copy of this new release to giveaway to TWO of my lucky readers! How great is that?!
The contest will run from today, July 22 until August 5 at 11:59pm. The winners will be announced that Sunday or Monday, depending on how quickly the winners respond to my email.


So, what do you have to do in order to win one of these great books? Not much. Just leave me a comment! Information on what that comment (or those comments) need to say/include is listed below.


So, to ENTER: Leave me a comment that says, YES! I would like to win! (Or some variation on that theme). Please, make sure that you leave your email address so I can contact you if you win! If I don't know how to contact you, I can't send you a book!

The winners will be selected from the entrants by a random method. I will send an email within 24 hours of the contest closing to the winners. I will give you 48 hours to respond, after which I will have to select a new name for the prize.


Nervous at only one chance to enter?! Alright, fine. I'll give you a few ways to stack your hand.


EXTRA ENTRIES:


*Be a follower of my blog. This is not a requirement, but I will give you extra entries for it. +2 for being an old follower (before 7/22) and +1 for being a new follower.


*Read and comment on my review of Forget You, found HERE. This MUST be a meaningful comment that shows me you actually read my review. 'Great review, sounds awesome' will not count. +1


*Spread the word! Leave me a link in the comments section, and I will give you +2 extra points for each link you provide, up to 8 extra. This includes blog posts, sidebars, tweets, facebook, etc. Just pass along the word.


*I also conducted an interview with Jennifer Echols. in my blog to read the interview. Leave a meaningful comment there as well for another +1 entry.


Alright, so what are you waiting for?! Leave me a comment letting me know how many entries you have! I'm pretty easy going with this, and don't care if you leave them all as one comment, post each individually, or a combination of the two. However, IF you are leaving multiple comments for your entry, you MUST include your name or other identifier in each comment so that I know all of them belong to you.


Also, ONLY U.S. entrants are eligible. Sorry guys, but the copies are coming from the publisher, and that is what they asked!

This book was a free copy courtesy of the publisher. They sent me the book in exchange for a fair and honest review. And, stay tuned for an exciting giveaway!

Forget You by Jennifer Echols was a surprise to me. I saw this book popping up on several blogs and thought it looked like it would be a fun read, a little bit of fluff to break up the monotony. So, when given the opportunity to review this book, I took it. And I am so glad that I did. I haven't been this surprised by a book in a while. The characters in this story were far more complex and realistic than I expected, and there was far more depth to the the story than I had anticipated.

This novel had a brilliant cast of characters, most of whom were very well done. Zoey, our main character, felt like a real person to me. Her reactions to the traumatic situations she found herself in were very realistic and I thought her emotions translated from page to person very well. Doug was also pretty intense, but in a really good way. Although there were some moments when he was a little bit extreme, I generally thought he was really sweet. He always seemed like he was trying to take care of Zoey and like he was looking out for her. Ya, there were times when he was a little underhanded and sneaky about it, but I can't really seem to find it within myself to blame him.

I also thought that the story was wonderfully crafted in a way that made the events critical to flow of the story completely plausible. I loved that we were introduced to Zoey and got to know her before the car crash that took her memory from her. I don't think I would have enjoyed the story half as much as I did if I were to meet Zoey as she was waking up from the wreck, or the day after. Even though the wreck happens toward the beginning of the story, the information and character background we receive from and about Zoey is critical to understanding her actions later in the story.

My only major complaint with this novel was Zoey's incredible naivety regarding her boyfriend (and I use that term loosely) Brandon. In the beginning of the book, she mentions more than once that she knows Brandon better than anyone else, and that she is the one he talks to about his girl 'problems'. She knows exactly who and how he is but she seems to believe none of that matters now, with her because they started out as just friends. I found her blinders (and blind faith) a little hard to believe. She's just too smart and level-headed in other situations for me to really believe her on this one. I'm definitely with Doug there... Although I did have a hard time believing that Zoey would really be that naive, Echols does a good enough job setting the stage for it that I'm willing to overlook it. Zoey is really struggling to come to terms with her life right now and she's trying to figure out how to just get through each day. It makes sense that she would look for someone to lean on, or lose herself in. But, she was still to adamant about that relationship. And I don't much care for him anyway.

With the rest of the characters, I feel like Echols gave them just enough personality of their own that they weren't quite stock characters forced to rely on cultural stereotypes to have anything to offer. And that worked for this novel. The focus should have been on Zoey individually, and then together with Doug. Which it was. Brilliant! Too often in this genre I see authors too caught up in one extreme or the other. They tend to focus so much on the romantic couple that the secondary characters barely get more than a name and a label or, they take the entirely opposite position and give their secondary characters so much personality, background and time that it becomes tedious and awkward. Echols somehow managed to find what I think is just about the perfect balance between the two. Not all of the characters are equally important, and I feel we got to see as much of their personality as their importance warranted.

Overall, I think this book was a great read, one I'm glad I had the opportunity to pick it up. This is a great novel to pick up when you are in the mood for a fairly light read, but it also makes you think. This story raises some tough questions, things that a lot of YA books in this genre don't even try to handle. I loved that this book gave us a story with meat to it while still being an enjoyable read about a young teen romance. For those of you still looking for a great beach read, I would recommend giving this one a shot.

Thanks again to the publisher for sending me my review copy!

in my blog to read my interview with Jennifer Echols!

This just seems to be a week of great news for me and my blog!

Lori over at The Next Best Book Blog has picked me and my blog to spotlight!! How exciting for me! It's a great spotlight, and Lori only has nice things to say for me. She always seems to be hosting great giveaways on her blog and has tons of great author interviews and information. (Apparently, she has great literary connections... !)

Head on over to her blog to check out the amazing spotlight here and in my blog to check out her latest giveaway. It ends soon, but there are still a few copies of the book What He's Poised to Do by Ben Greeman just waiting for YOU to grab them! it's a fun contest too — You get to write a letter to a literary character! What a great way to celebrate books! Head on over and enter now!

Remember to thank Lori for the lovely things she had to say and keep checking back for all the great stuff her blog has got going on!!

Hey everyone and thanks for reading! I've got some really exciting things planned for the blog over the next little while.

The most exciting update — Michael Clifford, author of The Book has agreed to write a unique guest post just for us! I never seem able to come up with interesting interview questions. All my questions either ask things that are pretty easy to find on the internet, or would totally spoil the ending of the book, not to mention giving away a writer's carefully hidden secrets. So, I asked Michael Clifford to write up a post for us, because it's more unique, more personal, and probably more interesting. And he said yes! So, keep checking back! Depending on his schedule, it should probably be up sometime late this week.

Also, I've started a Word of the Day. I'm hoping to update it once a day. I want to do more with it, but haven't drawn all the details together yet. It should end up being lots of fun though. I'll use it to instigate formal and informal contests and giveaways and a bunch of other fun stuff.

If you have any fun words you'd like to see featured as a word of the day, let me know! Leave me comments or send an email!

Today's guest post comes from author Jaclyn Dolamore (Magic Under Glass, Between the Sea and Sky). When I (Misty speaking, here) contacted her about being involved in FTF and possibly doing a pos
t on the behind the scenes stuff for Between the Sea and Sky (research loving dork that I am), I was understandably geeked when she agreed. And then she hit me with this awesomeness. Hope you love it as much as I do; if you do, make sure to leave her some comment love! And when you're done with this one, make sure to check out our interview and swagness! :)

My first novel, Magic Under Glass, involves fairies, but in many ways they are closer to a view of elves than fairies--forest-dwelling people with a connection to the earth. After all, there were already so many YA novels that involve fairy lore and do it better than I ever could. However, when I began my next novel, Between the Sea and Sky, and I knew it would be about a mermaid--Esmerine--and a winged boy--Alan, I had to consider, once again, how much I wanted to draw from myths and fairy tales. There aren't nearly as many mermaid stories (especially when I started writing it... little did I know that 2011 would be the year of the mermaid!) so I wanted to adhere closer to traditional tales in shaping my world.

One of the most common elements of mermaid (and selkie) tales is the idea of an object that can be stolen to entrap the mermaid. Selkies usually shed their pelt, but mermaids carry caps, belts, capes, combs... A human man can steal them and the mermaid will have to come home with him and marry him. Usually they have children, but one day the man leaves the object somewhere where the mermaid can get at it and she steals it back and leaves him and her children forever.

Fairy tales, when turned into actual novels with messy human emotions and details and explanations, tend to beg some questions. My first question was, how on earth did these mermaids end up with this enchanted object a man could use to enslave them? Were they BORN with a magical object? Not likely, right? They must have created it at some point, but why would you create something that, in essence, held your freedom? And why were these mermaids always hanging out where men could steal their stuff, then?

This led me to the idea that the mermaid's belt (in my story, it's a belt) is an object of great magic, and the reason why is that a mermaid sings magical songs to fill it with power that lingers even after she has died. I figured that not ALL mermaids would have these belts. It didn't seem logical for a sustainable society! Only certain mermaids--the sirens, whose songs lure human men. And the reason their songs lure human men is because the sirens are, themselves, lured to the land and its people. After all, mermaids are half-human, so it makes sense they would be not entirely creatures of the sea. Interesting tidbit: the original mythological sirens actually had wings, and somewhere along the line mermaids took up the job, mythologically speaking. I bet there could be a story in that, too...

But back to mermaid fairy tales. The most famous one is still The Little Mermaid, and the original Hans Christian Andersen tale, like nearly ALL Hans Christian Andersen tales, is quite sad. The Little Mermaid is able to take on a human form, but only by giving up her voice and having every step feel like knives. I liked the idea of my mermaids having to sacrifice something to take on a human form, so I paid a little homage to this story too. The mermaids in my story can only walk with great pain, unless they give up their belt. Otherwise, their world is not nearly so depressing, I'll say that!

I was beginning to see my underwater society take shape from thinking about mythology, but the winged folk were really open for interpretation. Besides angels, which these people are not, there isn't much precedent for mythological winged folk. I wanted Alan's wings to work as logically as possible, so I didn't want him to look angelic--instead, his structure is more bat-like, with wings instead of, rather than in addition to, arms. He still couldn't really fly without a little magical help, but at least he could glide. But it also means the winged folk kind of have to sacrifice hands for wings. They do have a thumb and index finger and longer toes capable of grasping things, but I imagined these delicate flying people would have to make more use of tools and machines to be able to do various types of manual labor as effectively as humans.

In astrology, coincidentally, the air element represents the mind and intellect. I had written about a winged race some years before and they were very primitive and lived in mountain caves, but I wondered if maybe I should take these winged folk in the opposite direction--they pride themselves on scholarly attributes. And it makes sense, because they would be able to move and share ideas faster between cities and countries than any other people. Their world is about the equivalent of our 1800 and the more I thought about it the more wondrous it seemed to have wings back then, when even the train wasn't invented and roads were often terrible.

Now, I hope my readers will enjoy reading about these cultures as much as I enjoyed figuring them out!

Jaclyn Dolamore is the author of Magic Under Glass, and the upcoming companion, Between the Sea and Sky. You can find her online here:

Blog | Goodreads | Twitter | Website

Summary from Goodreads:

Every night, Shahrazad begins a story. And every morning, the Sultan lets her live another day — providing the story is interesting enough to capture his attention. After almost one thousand nights, Shahrazad is running out of tales. And that is how Marjan's story begins...

It falls to Marjan to help Shahrazad find new stories — ones the Sultan has never heard before. To do that, the girl is forced to undertake a dangerous and forbidden mission: sneak from the harem and travel the city, pulling tales from strangers and bringing them back to Shahrazad. But as she searches the city, a wonderful thing happens. From a quiet spinner of tales, Marjan suddenly becomes the center of a more surprising story than she ever could have imagined.
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While in the early stages of planning fairy tale fortnight, Ashley contacted Susan Fletcher, asking her if she'd like to be a part of the event. Susan didn't have the time to contribute an author interview or a guest post, but she did donate a signed hardcover of Shadow Spinner from her personal collection. How cool is that?!

If you need further proof of how awesome it is, you can read Ashley's review (click!) . In case you haven't already guessed, she's definitely a fan.

In order to win a signed hardcover copy of this book, you must


Leave a comment telling us and Susan why you want to read her book.
Be sure to include your email address so we have a way to contact you if you win!


*Open Internationally
*Ends May 5th May 8th!

Eilis O’Neal’s debut novel, The False Princess, isn’t directly based on a fairy tale, but has that “feel” to it as you read. It’s about a princess who finds out that for the past sixteen years, she was a decoy for the real princess, who had been cursed at birth. It’s the complete reversal of tales where young maidens discover that they are princesses. Full of its own magic and lore, this novel has already been nominated by The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) for its annual Teens’ Top Ten Award. For a review of The False Princess, please visit A Backwards Story or Books From Bleh to Basically Amazing

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1) What were your favorite fairy tales growing up? What drew you to them?
I loved Beauty and the Beast and The Snow Queen. The first because I liked the fact that Beauty saw through the Beast’s exterior to his inner self, and the second for its atmosphere. And, though I wouldn’t call it one of my favorites, I had a very strong reaction to Bluebeard. We had a book of one-hundred fairy tales, which my mother would read to me from, one a night, and I don’t think I slept for two nights after hearing Bluebeard for the first time. I can still recall the picture that went with it of the wife opening the door, and it still makes me shiver. It frightened me and creeped me out, and I would read it whenever I wanted a good scare.

2) Did any fairy tales influence you when writing THE FALSE PRINCESS?
In a way, you could say that all the fairy tales in which common girls either become princesses or in which princess are raised in obscurity as common girls influenced The False Princess. Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are probably the two most famous of these types of fairy tale, though they certainly aren’t alone. Having grown up with their stories and having had them in my imagination for so long is part of what made me ask the question that lead to The False Princess: What if you grew up thinking you were a princess and then found out you weren’t? I wouldn’t have gotten to this reversal without first having read it the other way around.

3) Was it hard coming up with your own lore when you began world-building for TFP? How did you bring everything together?
It’s always such a balance when you’re world-building. With The False Princess, there are quite a few elements of the world—the oracle of the Nameless God, the way magic works, the tension between commoners and nobles—that are essential to the plot. The reader needs to understand them and how they work to really get into the book. But TFP also has heavy doses of mystery, adventure, and romance, and so the pacing has to move along at a pretty good clip. So it was sometimes a challenge to balance fleshing out the world and its rules and keeping the book moving. I want the information to be there, but in a way that feels natural and keeps the book going, rather than a ten page diatribe on exactly how magic functions in Thorvaldor. So that was what I tried to concentrate on: getting the needed information into the book in a natural way.

4) What are some of your favorite fairy tale inspired novels and/or authors?
I love Robin McKinley’s Beauty—I’m still so jealous of the Beast’s library in that book, which contains books that haven’t been written in Beauty’s time. Edith Pattou’s East, which retells East of the Sun, West of the Moon, has a prime place on my fairy tale shelf. Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow’s anthologies of fairy tale retellings (the first one is Snow White, Blood Red) are must-reads. Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl is a favorite, and recently, I’ve gotten really attached to Malinda Lo’s ASH, which is a very powerful and wonderfully written twist on Cinderella.

5) If you could live out any fairy tale, what would it be and why?
Probably Beauty and the Beast. It has so many elements that appeal to me: the enchanted castle, the mysterious curse, the slow building of trust and love between two people. And, of course, in many modern retellings, a girl who loves books!

6) Will you be writing any more novels that read like something out of a fairy tale? Can you tell us anything about your upcoming work?
I think so. It’s a feeling that I love in other books, and one that I like to cultivate in my own work. I’d like to do an actual fairy tale retelling myself someday—I just have to figure out which fairy tale I want to do most!

As for what I’m working on now, it has a bit of a more modern feel than TFP or many fairy tales, though by “modern,” I mean Regency England. Still, there are some definite fairy tale tropes in it. I’m going to be coy and not say much more than that, as these are still early days, and I tend to lose momentum if I talk about works in progress too much.

7) What's your favorite Disney rendition of a fairy tale? What makes it so special?
I feel a little like a broken record, but I would have to say Beauty and the Beast. It came out when I was in 6th grade and having a really hard time socially. I felt very alienated from kids my own age, and I spent a lot of time alone with my books. So to see a girl who loved to read and who was considered odd by the people around her be strong, fall in love, and have someone fall in love with her meant a lot to me.

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We want to thank Bonnie for sending this interview our way for FTF, and thank Eilis for stopping by and chatting! Make sure to leave them some comment love!

Cindy Pon is the author of two Asian-inspired high fantasy novels, Silver Phoenix and Fury of the Phoenix. While not based on a fairy tale, the books, especially Silver Phoenix, are full of original lore and mythical beings that could have stepped out of any traditional story. For a review of Pon’s work, please visit A Backwards Story .

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1) What were your favorite fairy tales growing up? What drew you to them?
I love the Hans Christian Anderson stories like The Little Match Girl and The Little Mermaid
and The Snow Queen. They were all magical but also all rather tragic. I think my father was the
one to buy me his anthology and I treasured those stories.

2) What Chinese folklore tales were your favorites? What did you like about them?
My favorite is The Cowherder and the Weaver. It is called the Chinese Valentine’s story and not only incorporates fantasy, but is very romantic. The weaver girl in the story was immortal and despite having children and living a happy human life, she was pulled back and separated from her family and husband to return to the heavens by her angry grandmother. So it is only on July 7th of each year that the lovers can meet in the heavens on a bridge across the Milky Way formed by magpies.

2) Did any traditional tales influence you when writing Silver Phoenix?
Not really. I'm influenced by everything I read in a way. But with Silver Phoenix, I simply knew I wanted to tell a heroine's journey and have a fantasy inspired by ancient China.

3) Was it hard coming up with your own lore when you began world-building, especially because, despite the Chinese influence, Xia isn't China? How did you bring everything together?
That wasn't the difficult part. The difficult part was allowing myself the freedom to make stuff up!
I had to realize and accept that I wasn't writing a historical or even a historical fantasy (which would
have to take place in a certain time or place in our history), but creating my own world inspired by China.
Once I gave myself that freedom, it was easy to just write Ai Ling's story the way I envisioned it. It is no
different than what Tolkien or Lewis or many fantasy authors did, use real culture and myth but also create your own for your fantasy world.

4) What are some of your favorite fairy tale inspired novels and/or authors?
I really enjoyed Entwined by Heather Dixon as well as Ash by Malinda Lo. White Cat by Holly Black is amazing (followed by Red Glove). These novels are loosely based on the White Cat fairy tale and is a favorite series of mine!

5) If you could live out any fairy tale, what would it be and why?
As tragic as it is, and as afraid as I am of being underneath the sea very deep, I'd have to say The Little Mermaid. I've always been fascinated by mermaids since reading the story.

6) Will you be writing any more novels that incorporate mythical beings? Can you tell us anything about your upcoming work?
I only sold two young adult novels so Ai Ling's story ends with Fury of the Phoenix. For my next project, I do hope to write and sell another Xia fantasy starring a shape-shifting snake demon (very popular in Chinese folklore) heroine and a wannabe monk. =)

8) What are some traditional Asian tales that should be more well-known in the Western Hemisphere?
Journey to the West (Monkey King) is the best known (but still not very well-known) story. I'm very excited, as Neil Gaiman has been asked to write the screen play and I hope to see an excellent film made for the US audience in the near future!

And now, in traditional Fairy Tale Fortnight fashion, the lightning round of crazy but fun questions!

~Best fairy tale villain and why? The stepmother from Snow White. She was just so conniving and scary

~Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale? A pastry, like Pie or Cupcake.

~ Using that name, give us a line from your life as a fairy tale:
Cupcake wandered lost in the strange forest, surrounded by star-shaped donuts, singing apple pie slices, and dancing blueberry scones.

~Would you rather:
- — eat magic beans or golden eggs? Golden Eggs!

- — style 50ft long hair or polish 100 pairs of glass slippers? Polish glass slippers!

- — have a fairy godmother or a Prince Charming? A fairy godmother!

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Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and answer some questions for us today Cindy! The interview was fascinating! And thanks Bonnie, for contacting Cindy and working with us on these interviews! You are both wonderful!

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 Internationally
Ends May 5th May 8th!

Today's interview is with Zoë Marriott, author of The Swan Kingdom (read Ashley's review) , Daughter of the Flames (which Ashley also loved) and the upcoming Shadows on the Moon (which both Misty and Ashley are eagerly awaiting). Zoë has known that she wanted to be a writer since she was finished reading her first book; The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. She thinks she was about eight, but she decided on being a writer and hasn't changed her mind since then. And boy, are we glad that she didn't! Help us welcome Zoë to the blog today!!

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The Swan Kingdom is my favorite retelling of The Six Swans/The Wild Swans that I have come across. You talk about what inspired you to write this one down in your guest post. I loved what you did with the story to make it your own, but your interpretation of the ending to this story is largely responsible for how much I love this book. Without spoiling anything, can you talk about that? Can you share where or how that idea came to you?

So hard not to spoil!! Argh! Okay... well... basically, in the original version of the story, I didn't think the heroine really got a very happy ending. Or enough credit! She's clearly an extraordinarily brave and strong young woman, loyal the her brothers to the end despite all the suffering she's gone through — but she gets stuck with this prince who pretty much *kidnapped* her, and then was going to burn her because he thought she was a witch? That's true love for you, right? And she never gets justice for the wrong done to her family by her stepmother, or any closure, or even to see the land of her birth again! I suppose a few hundred years ago women weren't supposed to care about thing like that, but I was sure that for someone like her, the fate of the people she had left behind much have weighed on her mind very heavily. And then, it also made sense to me that in order to reverse such a powerful curse on her brothers through almost nothing but willpower and knitting, she must have had some fairly strong magical power of her own! So I wanted to try and bring those elements into the resolution of the story and bring everything full circle.

Did you have the changes you brought to the story in mind before you started writing, or were these things that came to you after?

Wow, that's a good question! I think some of them were always there, because they grew from the questions I had about the story — the questions that made me want to retell it. I mean, for example: just who was the mother of these royal children? In fairytales the real mother nearly always gets erased in the first line and replaced by a wicked plot-point. But it seemed to me that, particularly in The Wild Swans, where the father is pretty much a non-entity and yet the children are remarkable, that the mysterious, dead mother must have been remarkable too. So I always new that in my version the mother and particularly her death would be significant and happen 'on-screen' as it were.
In other cases, the changes to the story were due to things that happened to be marinading in my brain at the time. When I was working on the first draft of the story I was watching a BBC documentary series about British pre-history in which there was a lot of information about the hunter-gatherers who built all our long barrows and stone circles. The experts talked about ancestor worship, and about the way that cave art seemed to show animal and human spirts all together, as part of nature. But then as people started to farm and develop agriculture and a more sedentary life, the idea of ownership and kingdoms appeared, and there was a massive shift in the way people lived. Did the hunter-gatherers disappear? Or were they absorbed into the farmer population? So those ideas worked their way into the book, and gave me an interesting and, I think, unique magical system and backstory for the Kingdom.
Is there a fairy tale that you just need to retell, but are waiting to retell, or holding off for now? What are some of the other fairy tales you've considered retelling? Are there any fairy tales that you absolutely do not want to retell?
Sooo many! I've always wanted to retell Beauty and the Beast, but I'm horribly intimidated by Robin McKinley's legacy. I mean, how is anyone supposed to live up to THAT? And there are a lot of less famous stories, for example, from Japanese mythology, that I have ideas about. The one I've never really been interested in is Sleeping Beauty — there's so little for the princess to do, and the idea of falling conveniently in love with your saviour bugs me. But I'd never say never. I always hated Cinderella too, until she started whacking me on the back of the head with a pick-axe demanding I tell her story properly!
You've also written a non-fairy tale story, Daughter of the Flames. How does the writing and the research differ between the two genres? Which do you prefer writing? Do you prefer creating a completely new story and creating the world to fit the story, or taking an existing story at making it your own?

This isn't a very interesting answer, but I can't really put my finger on any significant differences in the process between writing an original fantasy and a fairytale relling. Possibly because I don't stick very closely to the specific events of my fairytale frameworks (as you may have noticed!) which means I still need to come up with my own plot, my own characters, my own emotional conflicts and arcs. Probably more importantly, I don't really think that writing a fairytale retelling is a get-out-of-jail card when it comes to setting. It's easy to slip into that non-specific, Eurocentric, Tolkien-esque world we all know so well. But that is a thin, bland sort place where I don't have much fun as a writer. Creating the world of Shadows on the Moon, for instance, required as much (actually, far more!) thought and research than the world of Daughter of the Flames.
Your most recent book, Shadows on the Moon comes out this July, and I'm crazy excited for it. It's a Cinderella story, but she is most assuredly not your typical Cinderella. You mention why you wrote her this way in your guest post, and I am dying to read about it. There are many fairy tales with rather weak heroines. Are there any other stories that you would like to retell to give the heroines a chance to be strong?
Actually, I think the female characters in fairytales tend to get a bit of a bad rep, overall. In a lot of original folk stories, young woman are cunning, resourceful, brave and loyal. Often men are the weak ones who need to be rescued. Look at Janet in Tam Lin, Kai and Gerda in the Snow Queen, the heroine of East of the Sun and West of the Moon, all those clever young witches and woodcutter's daughters! And the powerful, fearsome baddies are often women too. The problem, I think, is that the Victorians didn't approve of all these bold, adventuring women, and they cut their parts down and sometimes out entirely, in order to make fairytales 'fit' for their children. Not many years later, Disney carried on this process by producing a great many films in which being sweet, obedient and passive (and supernaturally attractive to forest animals) were the heroine's only traits. Later films, like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, did allow the heroines to have SOME personality — but their number one desire was nearly always to escape from their fathers so they could find true love, and their princes were the ones with the claws/swords.
It's really only very lately that we're seeing books and films that give women back their original, strong roles (Tangled, for example!) and I'm very happy to be a part of that process.
Silly/Random Questions:
~Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale?

Pencils, probably. I always have one on me somewhere! Princess Pen... now, why does that sound familiar?:)
~ Using that name, give us a line from your life as a fairy tale: "Princess Pen cracked open her stepmother's ribcage and cut out the woman's horribly blackened, twisted, yet still-beating heart; she then replaced it with an artificial one which she had grown within a local farmer's pig, and closed up the incision."
[Misty likes Princess Pen already... ]
~Best fairy tale villain and why? The wicked fairy from Sleeping Beauty's christening. She's really the only interesting character in the thing!
~Favorite tale from childhood? Favorite tale as an adult? Least favorites? Childhood favourite was definitely The Wild Swans, and I have to be boring and say it STILL is. Least favourite used to be Cinderella — now Sleeping Beauty.
~If you could be any fairy tale character, or live through any fairy tale "happening," who/what would it be? I wouldn't. Are you crazy? Those stories are full of utter loonies, and even Princess Pen isn't mightier than the sword.
~Would you rather: - — eat magic beans or golden eggs? Golden eggs. With a little smoked salmon, on toast points. Maybe they would finally allow me to get a tan. - — style 50ft long hair or polish 100 pairs of glass slippers? My hair is actually waist-length right now, and I'm about to have it cut off from sheer annoyance, so I'd have to go with the slippers! - — have a fairy godmother or a Prince Charming? Fairy godmother — and once you've read Shadows on the Moon, you will know why! [Ashley says — SO mean to tease us this way when you already know how badly I want to read it! :) ] Fill-in-the-Gaps, story 1: Three Wishes
The strange little man had offered Princess Pen three wishes. But what to wish for? The obvious answer was world peace , but that would never do, for obvious reasons. Princess Pen wasn't naive enough to think that people would ever stop fighting for long. And unlimited money for stem cell research was out of the question, since Princess Pen's wicked stepmother had outlawed it.

The Princess squandered the first two wishes on aiding earthquakes sufferers and cooling down some nuclear reactors, and really needed to make the 3rd one count. There was only one thing to do: he/she would ask her genetically enhanced pig, Francis.

So early in the morning, the Princess set off for her lab where the porcine Francine lived. It was no easy task getting there; Princess Pen went through three security searches and a full body CT scan, and nearly lost hope of ever reaching Francis and making her final wish before she had to go off and do her rounds at Mount Eraser Hospital. Her stepmother's security measures were really getting out of hand.

But in all good time, Princess Pen reached the door of the one person who could help. With great trepidation, (for Francis could be somewhat cranky in the mornings if he hadn't had his coffee) Pen knocked and waited. Finallly, Francis opened the door with one handsomely trimmed trotter and peered out. “Yes?” he said.

Pen launched into the story of the little old man and his three wishes, but Francis merely held up a hand and said “It’s simple, really. I’m surprised you wasted your time coming all the way out here — you must wish for your wicked stepmother to agree to heart surgery so you can change her blackened, wizened heart for one which is generous and free of bigotry and unreasoning fear.”

Pen was baffled. Wish for something so simple? Not magic League-Boots to travel the world, or a wheel to spin flax into gold so that she could set up an inoculation project in the slums? However, it wasn't long before Pen realized that if her government was run by someone who actually had a working heart all the other things might one day be possible. So the Princess did the only thing she could, and wished for her stepmother to finally heed her pleas to accept a new heart.

Whether it was the right choice, the world will never know, but for Princess Pen it meant freedom from a great deal of unnecessary red tape in the long run, and the increased well being of everyone within the kingdom. And with all of the wishes gone, Pen lived busily ever after.
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Thanks for stopping by Zoë!! We're so glad to have you!
Hope you guys liked the guest post. If you want to fill in one of the stories for yourself, see this post.
And make sure to head over to our awesome guest post from Zoë, and enter to win our prize pack of Zoë's books!

Today we're reinforcing our love of Jessica Day George with an AWE.SOME. prize pack sponsored by Sierra @ Yearning to Read!
Check it out:

• a new paperback copy of Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow
• a new paperback copy of Princess of the Midnight Ball
• a preorder of the paperback version of Princess of Glass

This awesome interview comes to us courtesy of Bonnie from A Backwards Story. We've already mentioned Bonnie and the sphere of awesome she inhabits — she's really gotten on board with Fairy Tale Fortnight, and on top of posting scads of awesome reviews on her blog during the event, she's also sending some pretty terrific content our way, to share with you.
For today's post, Bonnie sat down to talk with Heather Dixon, author of the debut fairy tale Entwined, based on Misty's childhood favorite, The 12 Dancing Princesses.
(Yay!)

Heather Dixon’s debut novel, Entwined, is a re-telling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The novel is lush and fleshes out the classic tale in a beautiful, descriptive fashion. For a review of Entwined, please visit A Backwards Story or Books From Bleh to Basically Amazing

Heather was kind enough to not only sit down and take the time to answer some questions, but scrounge up some awesome Disney trivia for everyone! Thanks so much, Heather!

1) What were your favorite fairy tales growing up? What drew you to them?
I really loved Disney’s Cinderella, and, of course, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, for the same reason: the visual aspect! I loved watching Cinderella’s rags transform into a beautiful dress, and I loved going through The Twelve Dancing Princesses picture books and seeing all of their dresses, and the sparkling forests. Call me shallow…I like pictures.

2) Was it hard coming up with your own spin on The Twelve Dancing Princesses when you began world-building for Entwined? How did you bring everything together?
The early-early drafts of Entwined were horrendous. It was much closer to the original Grimm fairy tale, took place in the medieval time period, and there was a lot to do with witches and blood magic. But it was so dark; I didn’t enjoy how I felt when I worked on it. It wasn’t until I established the theme of the story—forgiveness between the princesses and their father—that it started to take off. The Victorian time period, with its rules and mourning, was the perfect backdrop. Not to mention the dancing with waltzes and balls, and the courtships! Like magic, everything unfolded after that.

3) What are some of your favorite fairy tale inspired novels and/or authors?
I like all of them, from Ella Enchanted to Beauty! My favorite though is Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt. It is a beautiful story with so much depth.

4) If you could live out any fairy tale, what would it be and why?
Yikes, I don’t know if I’d want to live one out. They’re all kind of Grimm. (Ber-dum ching!) I wouldn’t say no to Sleeping Beauty. She has a pretty cushy life and gets to sleep for 100 years. I could handle that.

5) Will you be writing any more fairy tale novels? Can you tell us anything about your upcoming work?
Right now I don’t have any fairy tales in the novel pipeline, but I can see myself doing a princess comic or picture book, or a long rhyming fairy tale. (A fun one: a retelling of Undine, but with the princess trapped in reflections rather than water.) I’d also love to do a novel of The Nutcracker or Candyland.

6) What’s your favorite Disney rendition of a fairy tale? What makes it so special?
I love all the Disney fairy tales. They do a tremendous job with their adaptations. I feel a real kinship with Disney’s Sleeping Beauty though because of the spectacular art. The beautiful Eyvind Earle backgrounds/art direction and the Tom Oreb character designs are so inspiring. I find it very touching.

And, because I'm a sucker for animation, here are a couple of tasties about Disney's fairy tales:

-Disney's Cinderella is based off of the Charles Perrault version, not the Brother's Grimm (Nearly all the versions of Cinderella I know of have been based off of Perrault's).
[Misty says: That's because Perrault is awesomesauce. Hands down fave.]

-The backgrounds in Disney's Snow White are muted and soft because the artists were unsure people could handle brighter colors in a feature-length film.

-Disney's new movie, Tangled, was originally meant to have a rococo look, but when the project switched direction, the makers chose Disney's Cinderella and Disneyland's Fantasyland (!) as inspiration for their new look.

-Some little-known fairy-tale adaptations Disney has done: The Tin Soldier (from Fantasia 2000) and The Little Match Girl (a short at the beginning of The Little Mermais’s re-release). They've also been working (off and on) with Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen.

-The tall, vertical trees and square bushes in Disney's Sleeping Beauty were based off of medieval tapestries.

-Right now Pixar is working on Brave, a fairy-tale story about a girl archer.

-Disney's Cinderella takes place in the late Victorian era.

With us today, we have Alex Flinn, author of both contemporary YA (Breathing Underwater, Breaking Point, Diva ) and modern fairy tale retellings (Beastly, A Kiss in Time, Cloaked )

To paraphrase the beginning of her official bio: No, Alex Flinn was not born in a log cabin in the Big Woods of anywhere, although Laura Ingalls Wilder is among her list of favorite childhood authors. She was born in a small town on Long Island, New York. At the age of five, her mother told her she should become an author. She must have given some form of assent, because her mother took every poem written in school to submit to Highlights of Cricket magazine. Which means she was collecting rejection slips at seven!

Lucky for us, she kept writing! Here's Alex

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You've written both Contemporary novels and fairy tale retellings. What inspired the shift in genre?

I didn't really think about shifting genres. If anything, I was nervous about it, as I already had a following in realistic YA. However, I really wanted to write about the Beast.

How does the writing differ between the two? Which do you prefer?

It's still all about story in both.

Can you give us any information about what we can expect from you next? Another fairy tale? More contemporary?

My next novel, Bewitching, will be released in Winter, 2012, and it revolves around the escapades of a certain 300+ year old witch.

As I mention in my review of your Beastly, it is one of my favorite Beauty and the Beast retellings, because it is told from the perspective of the beast. Too often, B&tB stories seem to be about Belle learning and applying the knowledge that beauty is only skin deep when in reality, the beast is the one who is being punished, and should be learning something. I love that we get to see the learning in Beastly. What made you decide to tell the Beast's side of the story? Was that challenging?

What attracted me to the story was the Beast's loneliness, the fact that he's a prince but seems to have no family. I was very lonely as a teen, and my stories are mostly about loneliness. This was just a different kind of loneliness.

I also loved that in A Kiss in Time, the two main characters didn't immediately fall in love. There was physical attraction, but they were definitely not in love. Was that a deliberate choice on your part, or something that just happened?

What made me want to write the story was how strange it seemed, in Sleeping Beauty, that the prince and princess would simply live happily ever after, when she'd been sleeping 100 years and she was awakened by someone she didn't know. I wanted to explore how it would really happen, which definitely wouldn't be love at first sight.

Fun/Silly questions:

~Best fairy tale villain and why?
The stepsisters from Cinderella. I'm sorry, but I really understand where they were coming from. Who wouldn't be jealous of such a perfect girl, coming to live with you?

~Favorite tale from childhood? Favorite tale as an adult? Least favorites?
Sleeping Beauty or Rapunzel. Ditto. Snow White doesn't excite me.

~ If you could be any fairy tale character, or live through any fairy tale "happening," who/what would it be?
I don't know a woman who wouldn't choose Cinderella.

~ Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale?
A spice

~ Using that name, give us a line from your life as a fairy tale:
When you name a girl Cinnamon, you have to expect her to be out-of-the-ordinary. And, of course, spicy.

~Would you rather:
- — eat magic beans or golden eggs?
Hmm, both sound like they'd have their disadvantages. I guess I'd take the beans, as long as I could cook them first, so they wouldn't grow inside me.

- — style 50ft long hair or polish 100 pairs of glass slippers?
Definitely the hair.

- — have a fairy godmother or a Prince Charming?
Fairy godmother. They can do more.

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Thank you for being with us Alex! We loved having you!
Readers, don't forget to check out the reviews of Beastly and A Kiss in Time on Ashley's blog, and stay tuned for more upcoming reviews from Misty and our guests! And, make sure you stop by The Paperback Princesses for your chance to win a copy of Beastly!