My Dear Future Readers ,
Today, I have a very special treat for you. I’m doing an interview with Annie Louise Twitchell. Ms. Twitchell is a self published author, who also wrote The Christmas Ladder: A Read Along Story as well as Spinner of Secrets which will be released on May 14, 2017.
I posted a review of Spinner of Secrets on Goodreads, please read my review. Spinner of Secrets Review by Diana Rose
Annie Louise Twitchell is a home-schooled graduate who is obsessed with dragons and fairy tales. She enjoys reading, writing, poetry, and many forms of art. When she’s not writing, she can often be found reading out loud to her cat, rabbit, and houseplants, or wandering barefoot in the area around her Western Maine home.
About Spinner of Secrets:
Where will the journey for love take you? Will it be worth the fight?
Letta is a peasant girl, whose father was outlawed and killed when she was small. Though her name means truthful one, she finds herself submitting to her stepfather’s will, and complying with his lies and trickery.
Prince Kyle is her reluctant husband. His mind is focused on one thing: avenging the murder of his childhood sweetheart.
They must learn to trust each other when a strange little man forces them to fight for what is important to them, in a desperate race to save their child’s life.
In this retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, Annie Louise Twitchell weaves an enchanting tale of love, longing, and thread.
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What inspired you to write Spinner of Secrets?
It was a writing prompt on a forum I was extensively involved with, two years ago. The prompt was to write a short story, and there must be three elements included there somewhere: a rose, an outlaw, and a castle. My first impulse was to do Beauty and The Beast, but I decided to see if I could do something a little differently. I settled on Rumpelstiltskin, and the story just grew from there.
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The feelings in the book are quite “hard” I mean the way the way that Prince Kyle treats Letta. Was it difficult to write Prince Kyle’s character?
Not hard to write; though I wanted to slap him almost every time I went over it in revising and editing. I didn’t have a hard time writing him, he sort of wrote himself. I wasn’t happy about it, and I cried over it several times, but there it is. Life isn’t pretty, and not every fairy tale ending has sweetness or sugar. Sometimes it’s just raw edges, grating on each other. This story has, to my mind, a lot of the sharp edges that the original Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson have. Have you ever read the original of the beloved Cinderella? It is not actually a pleasant story.
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Do you believe that Prince Kyle changed his option of Letta because he truly loved her or is it because he felt guilty for not accepting her?
I think there’s a bit of both. He realized he was being terribly harsh and unfair towards her, and later he did learn to love her. She was never going to be Melissa, and once he accepted that, he was able to see her for who she was and accept her for that.
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What kind of books do you like to read?
Short answer? All of them. I have a fondness for classics and old literature in particular. I like how the words sound.
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Is there a fairy tale that you like more than any others? Why?
That’s a difficult question to answer, since I have a hard time picking favorites. But I think it would be Beauty and The Beast. I want to write a retelling of that one at some point. The trick is finding one that’s different, because there’s so many Beauty and The Beast stories out there, and a lot of good ones.
6. Do you believe that true love exists even in our world?
I think my answer would have to be Jane’s. “Falling in love at first sight, maybe that’s a story. But mightn’t people learn to love each other? Might they make love, themselves, with work and effort?”
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Would you say that life built on lies can be fixed once the truth is revealed like in your book?
It depends on if the parties involved are willing to ask forgiveness and be forgiving, and if they are willing to work for healing and moving forward and truth.
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What scene is your favorite to write? Why?
I really enjoyed writing the Epilogue. I liked how it wrapped everything up, and the whole feel of it. I also liked Chapter Ten, even though it made me cry – a lot.
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What scene is your least favorite to write? Why?
Chapters Nine and Ten were very hard for me to write. I cried a lot, but I still liked them, for all that. It’s so hard to pick favorites and least favorites!
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“Spinner of Secrets” is a very unique title, how did you come up with your title for this book?
It just sort of… came to me. Not while I was dreaming, although I have had that happen before, but I was just working on writing and it showed up in my head. I loved it and there was never any question about it.
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The ending of the book was quite unexpected. What inspired such a creative way to end the book?
The ending is actually quite similar to the ending of the original fairy tale, although I lengthened the time between certain events a little and added a few elements of my own, to wrap up my story thread. I just worked with what I had.
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Do you believe in true love and that true love conquers all?
I think that love is the building block on which everything is made; romantic love can be fragile if there isn’t other things holding the connection together, but love as love, pure and simple – I think that’s what makes the world spin.
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Do believe that people a generally scared to admit they love each other in real life? you Why?
It’s so hard to say what other people think, and I’ve never really been “in love” myself, so I’m not sure how to answer this question. I know that there is what seems a universal fear of being rejected, which could make it very hard for someone to offer their love to someone else.
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What made it easy or hard to write this book? Why was it hard? Why was it easy?
It was easy because I loved the story so much. I have almost fifteen years of history with fairy tales, and not Disney or modern fairy tales, either. I read the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson long before I watched any of the Disney stories. They’re full of sharp edges and broken people and finding peace in spite of the shattered pieces, or sometimes, because of them. That gave me a very good feel for the type of story I wanted to tell. It’s not a pretty world that we live in. To quote Jeremiah, “Little comfort, I know. But sometimes we must take the little offered us and make it enough.” There is so much good here, and so much hope, and love. There is so much to live for, and I think once we accept that sometimes living is hard, and that loving is hard, and that people, including ourselves, are broken and worn down from life, I think we can see the beauty clearer.
You’ve heard people talk about guardian angels; I give mine a workout, I’m afraid. But I also like to think I have a writing angel who sits there and whispers ideas in my head, who pokes me to hurry up and stop being scared of putting the words down, and just write. It wasn’t an especially hard story to write, but it was hard to get my head to stop screaming in terror about putting it out there and letting people read it. Conquering anxiety has been one of my biggest struggles in writing this, which is probably why it took almost two years. But conquer it I did, at least, for now.
To be honest, this is a very interesting interview. Annie Louise Twitchell has a very interesting book and I’m glad that I could get her insight on how the book came to be. There is so much that I can relate to in her interview. I, myself love fairy tales and I read every kind. It is truly inspiring to me when an author can take something old and well-known and turn it into art. That is true talent in my eyes.
I believe that Ms. Twitchell has a good start. I think that if anyone likes old fairy tales, they will love this new book that is coming out on May 14, 2017. I really enjoyed interviewing this new author and I hope that I will get to see her on my blog again soon.
I hope you enjoyed the interview.
I look forward to hearing from you soon. I thank you all for your infinite support.
Yours Truly,
Diana Rose
YA Fantasy Romance Published Author
