I’ve loved fairy tales my whole life, as stories and art forms, and as studies of literature, human nature, and cultures. I’ve pursued them headfirst and by circling around their orbits. I first wrote a page-turner titled Princess Janet at age six. In my high school independent project, I studied the origins of fairy tales (whoa Sleeping Beauty!) and learned to see these stories through critical lenses, including the now outdated, psychoanalytic reading. As I continued to write and study, fairy tales came along. In my undergraduate at Mount Holyoke College, I studied Medieval Studies and Studio Art, and took classes on art history, literature, French, history, Children’s Literature, and creative writing. I lived in France for three years and visited as many castles and cathedrals as I could (when Hampton Court offered visitors capes, I swished along the stone hallways). In graduate school, I pursued an M.F.A. in Writing Literature for Children at Simmons University and I spent and intense, semester-long independent study on seven famous fairy tales, their makers and collectors, and modern versions. I’ve worked in the children’s sections of libraries and bookstores, as an elementary teacher, and in Barefoot Books publishing house, always drifting to the fairy tale, fantasy, and history content. I taught adjunct courses on writing, fairy tales, and Children’s literature for several years. Currently, I work in higher education and am working on a fairy-tale related YA nonfiction biography about a pioneer and feminist we have all forgotten. If you ever want to discuss the wild and twisty world of fairy tales, please drop me a line!