Welcome to Conversations with Fairy Whisperers, Ellen! It’s exciting to have you here in our space, where we hope to connect readers of fairy tales and folklore with the creators of the stories they love. Tell us about yourself, what’s the backstory of your becoming a writer?

Hello! Glad to connect with you and join the fairy whisperers, though perhaps I’m more of a dragon whisperer at this point. I’m so grateful to be interviewed on your blog! You are one of my favorite reviewers and I’d take a spot on your blog over a Kirkus any day.

While most know me as a Fantasy author, I’m also a lightning-strike survivor, a pastor’s wife, a kimono hobbyist, manga/anime enthusiast, and a stay-at-home mom. I became a writer in elementary school when I doodled my first graphic novel and tried to sell it on the street corner instead of a lemonade stand. That should have been a sign. But novelists are poor starving people, or so I was told, and I didn’t pursue it seriously until about a decade ago when I quit my day job and moved to Japan. Story has been a consistent passion in my life for as long as I can remember, so I’m glad I finally took the step to write my own stories and share them.

Of all the genres and styles folklore and tales can be reused for, which do you most prefer to write yours in?

Essence matters more than medium to me. I enjoy folklore and tales reimagined in many genres and formats, but I usually lean toward Fantasy or Historical, novel or manga. Ideally, I would like to blend my favorite mediums and am experimenting with new things like adding “omake” or character extras to a novel, such as the ones in The Last Wayfinder.

I’m currently reading Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity (a brilliant title in the original Japanese, by the way) and it’s decidedly my favorite retelling of Romeo and Juliet even though it’s a slice-of-life contemporary manga, a genre I usually dislike. It’s also shounen, typically for male youth, though it has crossover to shoujo. In other words, I like stories that break norms. Saints & Monsters broke some norms with the POV switches and plotting along kishotenketsu lines rather than the traditional western structure.

I’ve noticed that in your stories you tend to use elements from multiple fairy and folktales rather than do traditional retellings.  Do you have a favourite fairy tale? What aspects of it appeal to you personally, and why?

My favorite fairytales are The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, Beauty and the Beast, and Urashima Taro.

In MacDonald’s work I love the atmosphere, the compassion, the unexplained wonder, and finding what makes us whole. I think the best fairytales remind us that the world is still full of magic and courage is never out of place. Beauty and the Beast is just iconic. Many of my childhood favorites were seasoned with that fairytale.

In Saints & Monsters, I wanted to explore the idea of what makes a monster or a saint and the transforming power of love and compassion—components very much in line with Beauty and the Beast. And, of course, a transforming self-sacrificial love that wins the day.

You mentioned before that Japanese history and folklore is your passion, and I can tell that you’ve poured all this love into crafting the world of the “Hearts of Ezo” series. As a Westerner living in Japan, have you noticed differences between their fairy tales and ours that you personally find most fascinating?

Western fairytales often focus on the individual and moral change, whereas Japanese folklore tends to focus more on social harmony and accepting duty, speaking in generalities of course. Modern Japanese storytelling particularly fascinates me as it blends culture and influences freely. For example, Spirited Away carries echoes of Alice in Wonderland but layered with Japanese folklore and yokai, the importance of community and personal identity, strong female characters . . . and a shapeshifting dragon. As someone who studied cultural anthropology and lives between cultures as a Third Culture Adult, I find East meets West storytelling fascinating!

Dragons are another topic that show how culture shapes fairytales. In many Western traditions, dragons are flying fire-breathing monsters to be defeated, while in East Asian folklore they’re often protective or divine beings with connections to nature—or shapeshifting romantic leads. I recently had two surprising conversations about dragons in cultural and religious contexts and was shocked by how many objections some have to these fantastic creatures—both from the East and West! I nearly wrote up a treatise on “In Defense of Dragons” but I didn’t have time to do it justice. Someday.

I would sure love to read such a treatise! And speaking of cultural differences, in your opinion, what piece of folklore from either West or East is the most complicated to reinvent, and why?

Older folktales that have more national identity can be the hardest. Like Momotaro. It’s very hard to rewrite a baby popping out of a peach and battling demons! I think it’s been done in an anime, but usually he just gets cameos in fiction or some light treatment, not full retellings. Propaganda during World War II may have something to do with it as well. Who knows?

You recently published The Last Wayfinder, the second book in your “Hearts of Ezo” series, that you said was meant as a Les Misérables retelling but came out as a different story. I could detect a faint Beauty & Beast vibe in this book because of a certain relationship, but it’s the début book, Saints and Monsters, that read as if it drew some inspiration from “Beauty and the Beast,” that you clarified wasn’t intentional. How did you come across the idea for the stories in this series?

Are you ready for a surprise? I wrote The Last Wayfinder FIRST. It started as a YA historical novel set in 1890s Hokkaido and loosely inspired by Les Misérables.

At the time, I had another historical manuscript on submission with an agent and was advised to switch genres because they could not sell my books due to optics. I still remember being told I could be Thai and write about Japan, I just couldn’t be white—it was bad for marketing. It didn’t matter that I lived in Japan and worked with sensitivity readers. So, I pivoted and rewrote the manuscript from scratch as a YA fantasy.

The shift you noticed in your review, from character-driven to plot-driven at the halfway mark, actually reflects the moment when the story changed genre in the drafting phase.

Many elements in the series are inspired by history and real places that are dear to me. Even the dragon lore came from reading a Meiji-era autobiography where someone reported sea dragons in Sagami Bay. Were they dragon boats for a parade or actual monsters? I thought it would be fun to see the latter. I gave the dragons dual hearts. Yes, Dragonheart whispered in my subconscious, as did The Last Unicorn and East of the Sun West of the Moon. I also gave the dragon hearts powers like in the One Piece fruits. Best of both worlds.

Saints & Monsters came later after signing with a small press that focused on romance, which explains why that book has more romance elements. But I am so glad I got the rights back and published it indie!

Writing this series also coincided with a difficult season in my life. While drafting The Last Wayfinder, my mother was battling Stage 4 cancer and my husband lost his job after confronting church abuse. I was navigating a diagnosis of Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disorder (UTCD) and celiac disease that was difficult to manage in Japan. Those experiences shaped the tone of these stories as books that explore resilience and hope in a broken world. (And it’s sad not to eat ramen and pon-de-ringu donuts, this must be said…

I heard some rumours that next book might be about a certain character from the first book that many of your readers loved. What can you share about future books in the series and what can we expect from them?

There are four books total: Saints & Monsters, Dukes & Dragons, The Last Wayfinder and The Shadow Prince. They can be read as standalones or as a series. Personally, I think they can be read in any order, but if you want to read them chronologically the order is the above. It’s true that Wayfinder will have a little more emotional punch if you read Saints first.

The rumor is true! Casmir is my favorite character and I’m working hard to make his book the best yet. It’s a challenge to write it so that it can also function as a standalone!

Expect the next books to have more Japanese words and cultural/historical references because I’m indie now and don’t have the gatekeepers lurking over my shoulder.

Many authors who started their careers writing fairy tale and folklore-inspired books later abandon them for other genres and story ideas. Do you plan to continue writing Folkloric Fantasy or will you move on to other projects?

I think my work will always have something of the fairytale, of an impossible turn of chance and hint of magic, but I do have some ideas for adult contemporary Fantasy.

Do you ever yourself writing an original fairy tale as opposed to a story inspired by one?

When I set out to write Saints & Monsters I had thought of it as original but turns out it was heavily Beauty and the Beast-inspired! I think it’s quite difficult to write a truly original tale, there will always be elements of something or another in the background.

If there was a Hall of Fame for retold fairy and folktales, which would you consider the best books and why are they worthy of inclusion in said Hall of Fame?

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, a truly original and entertaining retelling of Rumpelstiltskin with gorgeous prose.

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, my favorite Beauty and the Beast retelling.

My Happy Marriage and Cinder are both exceptional Cinderella retellings that adapted the material with an abundance of creativity.

Is there an author who you view as a role model for your own writing?

Ayako Miura is my favorite author. I admire her thematic stories, lyrical prose, deep faith, grit, and realism. George MacDonald and Nahoko Uehasi would be close seconds. Miura also had health issues which I relate to on some level. It’s not easy to write when sickness seems like a constant friend, or to find beauty in the world around you when ridiculed for your faith or suffering pain.

Miura is someone who persevered and infused her work with depth and heart. She didn’t publish her breakout novel until her 40s and used her work to ask deep questions. She inspires me to write with courage and hope in a broken world and to not give up.  

Fascinating insights, Ellen! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. We will be keeping an eye on your future books, which we hope shall be many more in the years to come.