Once Upon a Time | A guest post by YA author Gretchen E K Engel

Once upon a time…

…there was a girl named Gretchen who loved books from the time she was small. Along with the Little Golden Bible (blond Jesus and all), she loved fairytales: Rapunzel, Cinderella, Belle (although she didn’t learn the tale of Beauty and the Beast until third grade). See Gretchen was born “a long time ago” in an era called the seventies. She grew up in that idyllic time called the eighties before The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin were movies. She had got her driver’s license the same year The Little Mermaid debuted. Went on a date in college to see Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin was one of the first movies she saw with the man she would one day marry.

While the only Disney princesses on the silver screen in her childhood were Cinderella and Snow White, it didn’t mean she didn’t know their stories. She grew up with books about princesses. And the glass-slippered Cinderella was her favorite. She also liked fairytales of a Grimm-er nature including “Hansel and Gretel” (her sort of namesake) and “Rumpelstiltskin”.

One year she received a special gift, Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folktales by Alison Lurie. It’s a collection of fairytales with not damsels-in-distress but strong heroines who often outwit their enemies and/or land the boy by intelligence as much as beauty.

Now that she’s an adult, Gretchen loves fairytales but prefers books with clever takes on these tales over the musical movies with big-eyed heroines. Although she’s usually up for a viewing of Frozen with her six-year-old. Melanie Dickerson is one of her favorite authors who has written her versions of Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, and the Frog Prince. Cinder, the story of a cyborg Cinderella is in her to-be-read pile.

Not only does Gretchen love reading fairytales, she also writes them. Her short story “Detention” will be released as part of an anthology called Out of the Storm. It’s being published by Hope Springs Press to benefit the ACFW scholarship fund. “Detention” is a take on Cinderella featuring a strong heroine who happens to be a steampunk Elf.

Thanks so much for sharing with us today, Gretchen! It was a pleasure to feature you on the blog today!

Connect with Gretchen E K Engel…

To connect with Gretchen please visit…

https://www.facebook.com/gretchen.engel

https://twitter.com/GretchenEKEngel

http://gretchenekengel.com/

She also blogs at…

http://thescriblerians.wordpress.com/

http://samiesisters.com/ 

What is YOUR your favorite fairy tale, and why? Share with me and Gretchen in the comments below. We would love to hear from you! You can also tweet to us @SaraEllaWrites and @GretchenEKEngel. Until then, Happy reading!