Welcome to Conversations with Fairy Whisperers, Michelle! Glad to have you here in our space dedicated to connecting the fairy tale retellings readership with the creators of the stories they love. Tell us about yourself, what fascinates you about fairy tales and how did you begin writing retellings of them?

Hi! Thanks so much for having me! I like to call myself an empress with a war map in one hand and a romance vow in the other. I write Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and Young Adult adventures where magic crackles, danger prowls, and love never backs down.

I’d wanted to write fairy tales for years, but the timing finally clicked when I was wrapping up a dark, dangerous five-book series full of angels, demons, and a whole lot of chaos. I was ready to turn toward something lighter, sweeter, and more romantic. Then one day my cover artist posted a gorgeous premade cover of a girl in a red gown, and my brain immediately said: Cinderella. At Christmas. That idea became Once Upon a Midnight Clear.

From there, things escalated in the best possible way. She kept posting stunning covers, I kept buying them, and before I knew it, I was building an entire fairy tale world. I started researching the old tales, deciding what pieces to keep, what to reinvent, and how to give them a fresh twist of my own. I also created the Aunt Hilde and Marigold framework because, to me, fairy tales should feel told—passed down like something half magical and half true. That storytelling thread became the heartbeat of the Enchanted Realms series.

Of all the styles and formats retellings come in—pictorial, screen, graphic, illustrated, or written—which do you most favour?

Oh, that’s such a great question. I grew up on Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty—the Disney versions—so those will always be my first fairy tale loves. They were my gateway into that world of magic, wonder, romance, and happily ever after. But as I got older and started actively looking for fairy tale retellings, I found myself drawn to novels. I read a lot of them then, and I still do now. There’s just something about seeing a familiar tale expanded into a full story with deeper emotion, richer worldbuilding, and a fresh twist that I absolutely love. So these days, novels are definitely my favorite form of retelling.

Also, a little side note that will absolutely date me: before DVDs, there were LaserDiscs, and I had Beauty and the Beast on LD. I wore that thing out. It was so gorgeous—so crisp and vivid in a way VHS just could not touch. I was completely enchanted by it. Honestly, that probably tells you everything you need to know about me.

It definitely does, your love for fairy tales shines through so brightly whenever you talk about the topic! And you have several retellings published for different fairy tales by now. Do you have a favourite fairy tale? What aspects of it appeal to you personally, and why?

Oh, this is such a hard question, because every fairy tale holds its own kind of magic for me. Cinderella has the glass slippers, the ball gown, and that one enchanted night where everything changes. Sleeping Beauty has the romance of a destiny she doesn’t even know is waiting for her. Snow White carries that bittersweet mix of innocence, danger, and grace—she’s hated for no reason at all, and yet she remains kind and lovely anyway. Those were some of the core stories that first captured my imagination, and they’ve stayed with me ever since.

What appeals to me most, though, is that at the heart of all of them is hope. No matter how dark the forest gets, no matter how cruel the obstacle or how impossible the odds, fairy tales believe in transformation. They believe that goodness matters, that love matters, and that light can still break through. I think that’s what I’ve always loved most about them.

In your opinion, what makes a retelling stand out? What do you consider the joys and challenges of writing in this specific subgenre?

For me, what makes a retelling stand out is the author’s unique voice and the fresh twist they bring to a story we think we already know. The bones of the fairy tale are still there—the core themes, the iconic tropes, the emotional shape of it—but the magic is in what makes that version different. Why this retelling? Why now? Why this author? That’s the part that excites me most.

When I started writing my own retellings, I asked myself a lot of what if? questions. What if Cinderella fell in love with a prince from another realm? What if Snow White had elemental magic? What if Belle could read magical languages? That’s where the stories start opening up for me. The challenge is honoring the familiar elements readers love while still making the story feel new, surprising, and entirely my own. But honestly, that’s also the joy of it. Taking something timeless and giving it a fresh heartbeat is one of the most fun parts of writing in this subgenre.

As to giving tales a fresh heartbeat, what fairy tale is the most complicated to reinvent for you, and why?

What a great question. Right now, I’d say the most complicated one to reinvent has been The Snow Queen. That’s my next retelling, and I’ve been thinking hard about how to make it feel fresh and magical without wandering into territory that feels too close to Frozen. I want it to feel familiar to readers who know the original fairy tale, but I also want to bring my own twist, voice, and emotional heart to it. That balance can be tricky.

I think that’s what makes this one especially challenging for me at the moment. It’s the story directly in front of me, so I’m deep in the questions of what to keep, what to reinvent, and how to make it unmistakably mine. That’s always the puzzle with retellings, but this one feels particularly layered because the source material has such a strong cultural shadow now.

You recently published Once Upon an Enchanted Castle, a direct retelling of “Beauty and the Beast,” that I loved. What struck me the most about this book was the character of Isabella, the “Beauty” figure, for how unusual she is as a character: a professional linguist. How did you come across the idea for this story, and what can you tell us about its creative process?

This one actually came to me in a very funny, very random way. I was texting my sister-in-law about book ideas—she’s not a writer, but she very kindly listens to all my ramblings—and I suddenly typed that I wanted to write Beauty and the Beast, but make Beauty smart in a very specific way. I wanted her to have her own area of expertise, her own power, so I said: she’s going to be a linguist. She’s going to translate books. It just popped into my head right there in the text conversation. My sister-in-law’s response was basically, “This is amazing,” and I remember thinking, Okay, yes, there’s something here.

From there, I did what I always do: I started asking myself a cascade of What if? questions. What if her father was a merchant? What if he brought home a strange old book no one could read? What if the book was cursed? And what if that cursed book was somehow tied to a cursed prince? Once those pieces clicked into place, the whole story began to open up.

What I loved most about the creative process for Once Upon an Enchanted Castle was building a Beauty figure whose intelligence was central to the story. Isabella’s gift with language isn’t just a character detail—it’s part of the magic, part of the mystery, and part of what makes her the right person for this particular tale. That made the retelling feel fresh to me. It still has the romantic, enchanted heart of Beauty and the Beast, but it also gave me room to play with cursed texts, hidden meanings, and the idea that words themselves can hold power. Honestly, it was delicious fun to write.

And speaking of “Beauty and the Beast” versions, which of the three main versions—Villeneuve, Beaumont, Disney—are you personally the fondest of, and why?

Disney, hands down. No hesitation. That version absolutely owns my heart. Part of it is pure nostalgia, of course, but part of it is also that it was such a visual feast for me. I was completely enchanted by the romance, the music, the ballroom scene, the Beast’s castle, all of it. It felt lush and magical and larger than life in exactly the way fairy tales are supposed to feel.

And yes, this absolutely ties back to my earlier LaserDisc confession, because I wore that thing out. I loved it that much. There was just something about seeing it in those rich, vivid colors that made the whole experience feel even more magical. So for me, Disney will always be the version I’m fondest of.

I imagine you still have a few tales to retell for your Enchanted Realms series, Do you ever yourself writing an original fairy tale as opposed to a retelling?

Oh, I absolutely still have a long list of tales I want to retell. The Enchanted Realms world has plenty of room left for me to keep playing, and I’m nowhere near done with fairy tales yet. There are still so many stories that spark ideas for me, and I love the challenge of finding the right twist that makes a retelling feel fresh and magical.

As for writing an original fairy tale, I’ve definitely thought about it. I haven’t landed on the idea yet—the one that makes me sit up and go, Oh, there you are—but it’s very much something I could see myself doing. It’s absolutely not out of the question. Honestly, it feels less like if and more like when the right story finally appears and demands to be told.

Many authors who started their careers writing retellings later abandon fairy tales for other genres and story ideas. Do you plan to continue writing retellings or will you move on to other projects?

Oh, I absolutely plan to keep writing retellings. Not just fairy tales, either, but other familiar stories that carry that same mythic, recognizable resonance. I love taking a tale people think they know and finding a new emotional angle, a new layer of magic, or a fresh twist that makes it feel alive again. I would love to do my own take on The Wizard of Oz, for example. And I’ve already stepped a little beyond traditional fairy tales with my riff on Poe’s The Raven in Once Upon a Midnight Dreary.

I really see the Enchanted Realms as one of my flagship worlds. That means I fully intend to keep writing in it, expanding it, and building more stories around it. I’m definitely not done there. At the same time, I also love exploring adjacent ideas, which is why I’m working on a cozy fantasy spinoff connected to the Enchanted Realms. It lives beside that world rather than inside the core retelling line, and I’m hoping to have it out later this year.

You host a podcast called Miles Beyond the Page, in which you talk with other authors about the writing and publishing process. What insights have you gleaned from these conversations that you find the most eye-opening?

Oh gosh—so many things. One of the biggest takeaways for me has been just how creative, resilient, and hardworking authors really are, especially Indie authors. They are constantly building not just books, but entire careers—often while wearing twelve different hats at once. I love hearing about their processes, their inspirations, the strange and wonderful ways their stories come together, and what keeps them going when this business gets hard. Because it does get hard.

I think the most eye-opening part, though, is realizing over and over again that none of us are alone in this. So many of us share the same struggles, the same doubts, the same deep love for story, and yes—the same complicated relationship with marketing. That seems to be a near-universal truth. At the end of the day, whether we’re talking about fairy tales, folklore, fantasy, romance, or publishing in general, most authors want the same thing: to tell the stories they feel called to tell and to have readers truly connect with them. That shared heart behind the work is something I find incredibly moving.

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

A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer belongs in the Hall of Fame because it does what the best retellings do: it honors the original fairy tale while creating something fresh enough to stand on its own. House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig had a great Gothic concept, but A Curse So Dark and Lonely felt like the stronger, more complete retelling.

I actually liked the whole series by Brigid Kemmerer!

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

There are so many authors I admire, in both traditional publishing and Indie, that it’s hard to narrow it down. But the writers who most inspired me to start writing—and to keep writing—are Gena Showalter, Karen Marie Moning, Holly Black, and Sarah J. Maas. Their books captured my imagination in different ways, but they all share that ability to create immersive worlds, unforgettable characters, and stories with real emotional pull.

I think what I admire most is how boldly they write the kinds of stories only they could tell. Their work feels vivid, distinct, and unapologetically itself, and that’s something I’ve always found inspiring. They each reminded me, in different ways, of the kind of magic books can hold—and of the kind of writer I wanted to become.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Michelle! It’s been such a pleasure to talk with an author as enthusiastic about fairy tales as we are here. We will be keeping an eye on your future books, which we hope shall be many more in the years to come.

Thank you so much for having me!