Why, hello! It’s Erin. Have you enjoyed the interview series so far?
Today, I am interviewing middle grade fantasy author, Diane Zahler! When I filled out the contact info on her website asking to interview her, I didn’t expect a response. Then, lo and behold, she replied within a few hours!
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Q: Thank you for joining us today! When did you begin writing?
A: I always wanted to be a writer—to write children's books. It's basically all I ever wanted to do. I started writing novels after I graduated college and moved to New York. But it's a long way from writing a book to getting a book published!
Q: That’s so cool! Who inspired you to write?
A: There wasn't a particular person who inspired me. It was more the authors I read as a kid—E.L Konigsburg, Edward Eager, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, Marguerite De Angeli. I wanted to do what they did, if only half as well.
Q: Lewis, Konigsburg, and L’Engle are incredible! How do you get ideas for the fairy tale twists that you write?
A: When I first started writing fairy tales, I remembering thinking that ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’ was my favorite. And so I wondered: what if there was a thirteenth princess? What would her life be like? How would she relate to her twelve beautiful sisters? The process for the others was similar—I chose a tale that I loved and then considered ‘What if?’ It's a question that always has an interesting answer. For Baker’s Magic, I took my love for baking and my love of Holland and wondered: What if you mixed these together—and added some magic?
Q: I apparently do the same thing! When I wrote Fairy Tales Made Modern Volume 1, I asked questions about ‘what would happen if’. How did the publication process go when you wrote your first book?
A: My first novel never got published. Neither did my second. And they shouldn't have—they were terrible! My third novel was published 25 years after I wrote it, as Daughter of the White Rose. It went through so many rewrites and revisions I can't even count them! But my first published book was The Thirteenth Princess. I sent it to an editor I met when I was working in children's book publishing in New York. She remembered me, and she loved the story. Once that happened, the process was pretty smooth—she even offered me a 2-book contract, which was amazing. The whole experience was beyond thrilling. I was finally succeeding at what I had wanted to do for so long!
Q: That does sound thrilling! Do you have a piece of advice for young writers?
A: The most important piece of advice I can give is to persist. If your first book doesn't succeed, your next one will be better. There are writers who create brilliant first novels, but they're the exception, not the rule. With writing, the more you write, the better you write. And the more you read, the better you write. It's so hard to deal with rejection, but in publishing, rejection is the norm. I give myself a day to mourn each "no" —and I still get plenty of them! Not every story will resonate with every editor. If you're talented and persistent—and maybe a little lucky as well—your book will find its home.
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Thank you, Ms. Zahler, for your time!
How true that advice is! Have you read any of Zahler’s books?
That's awesome that you got to interview Diane Zahler! My younger sister has some of her books, including the Thirteenth Princess. The Daughter of the White Rose looks exciting.