Sara Lewis Holmes

Why did I write the book as mostly letters? Maybe because when I was growing up, I had a hard time talking about anything emotionally risky. So I wrote letters instead—to my family, to my friends, and to the man who later became my husband of 21 years.

I also enjoy reading collections of letters, and one of my favorites is Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom. Many of the authors to whom she writes in the 60’s and 70’s were creating the very books that I was carrying home from the library as a child.

In the spring of 2004, I loaned Dear Genius to my mother, who had just finished reading it when I called to tell her that that Letters From Rapunzel had won the first annual Ursula Nordstrom Fiction Prize!

I’m very honored to be published by Ursula Nordstrom’s house, HarperCollins, and to advance her vision of “Good books for bad children.”

Why Fairy Tales?

I‘ve always loved fairy tales, and as a child, read every one of Andrew Lang’s “Fairy” books. Later, I admired Donna Jo Napoli’s re-tellings, especially Zel (a version of Rapunzel), and William J. Brooke’s playful collections, including A Teller of Tales.

One of my first published short stories was an original fairy tale, “A Tale of Quiet,” which appeared in Cricket magazine in May 2000. My favorite fairy tale is “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” probably both because of its fabulous title, and because the girl gets to rescue the prince.