Many people have retold various fairy tales several times, including beloved classics, like “Cinderella” and “Jack and the Beanstalk.”
Author and finalist for the 2024 LDSPMA Praiseworthy Award Amy Trent is a huge fan of fairy tales. She often retells fairy tales in her own writing as well, but the stories she spins are sometimes unfamiliar to the average reader.
In her “Enchantment Retold” series, Trent retells some lesser-known fairy tales, like the stories of “Kate Crackernuts,” “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” and soon, “Diamonds and Toads.”
The author says she has always been interested in learning about fairy tales.
“I’ve always loved fairy tales since I was a preschooler,” she said. “They’re very engaging, they’re often beautifully illustrated and I had my favorite anthology that I would ask everyone to read to me. My favorite tale in the anthology was ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses.’”
Trent offers advice to aspiring writers. She counsels them to dedicate certain hours each week to the work and to write for enjoyment.
“It just gets tricky if the goal becomes, ‘I want to publish or I want to make money or I want to grow an audience.’ But, if you want to write for the joy of it, there’s no wrong way of doing it,” she said.
Anyone who has met Amy Trent knows she is also not only a lover of fairy tale retellings, but of cookies as well.
Trent says she often likes to combine those two things, sometimes sharing cookie recipes in her writing newsletter and blog.
“I tend to bake and eat a whole lot of cookies when I’m writing, so I share it via photos on the newsletter. And they’re a lot more photogenic than of course all of my drafts and scribbled notes,” she said.
The author’s favorite kind of cookie is a homemade sugar cookie with buttercream frosting.
To learn more about Amy Trent, visit her website.