They were all originally published by Viking Children’s Books in the past ten years or so, but they weren’t getting very much notice, and my editor at the time suggested I write something a bit more mainstream. I wrote five “spin offs” to The Winter Prince-A Coalition of Lions, The Sunbird, The Lion Hunter, The Empty Kingdom and The Sword Dance ( the first two have recently been reissued as e-books from Open Road Media, with the next three in the pipeline. I am not kidding.Ībout this time I was also a serious King Arthur fanatic and started inventing the epic journey which eventually became my first novel, The Winter Prince. My best friend called it “the stupidest book she’d ever read.” It was an epic fantasy and the denouement involved the heroine playing a flute with her nose. I wrote another novel, which was utterly appallingly awful, when I was 15. I wrote my first full length opus when I was eleven-it was about 25,000 words long! It was a time-travel adventure in which a modern girl changes place with her great-great-grandmother for a summer.

Miss Print (MP): Can you tell us a bit about your path as a writer? How did you get to this point?Įlizabeth Wein (EW): I’ve wanted to write children’s books (somehow they all morphed into YA) since I was seven and first started reading novels. Today I’m absolutely thrilled to have Elizabeth Wein here answering some questions about her novel. Since then I’ve had the chance to meet Elizabeth in real life at BEA (regular readers might remember it was a highlight of my recap!) and also to “talk” to her sometimes on Twitter (twitter is magic). Suffice to say I was dazzled by the story and the characters but also by how everything came together the more I read. Wein when she came to sign stock at the bookstore where I worked. The real clincher was when I (briefly) saw Ms. I could go on and on about this book–especially because I almost didn’t pick it up.

Her novel is one of my favorite reads from 2012 and also one of the best odes to friendship (not to mention an excellent historical novel) I’ve ever read.

You’ve probably already heard of Elizabeth Wein what with her novel Code Name Verity receiving a Printz Honor last year.

Elizabeth wein books in order