This princess still wears black

Wow, THE PRINCESS IN BLACK is still on the Times bestseller list. It's incredibly rewarding that this book is finding an audience.

PIB trivia!

Princess Magnolia wasn't her original name. I hesitated to name her after our daughter but eventually gave in. She was game for it, and since she doesn't go by Magnolia hopefully the character's name won't haunt her into adulthood.

Frimplepants was Frimplepants from the first draft. I don't know where the name came from, but I'm so glad that it came.

Duchess Wigtower had many different names that didn't work. Then Dean wrote up a list of 20+ possible names and Wigtower won.

Duff the Goatboy I named after Duff Rich, who introduced me to Jerusha Hess, leading to the AUSTENLAND movie.

Book 2 (out this fall) introduces Princess Sneezewort. Prepare yourselves for a new literary superstar. I adore Princess Sneezewort to my toenails. LeUyen Pham* based her look on her own younger self. Adorable and hysterical.

It's only 2500 words long, but we spent many many hours on those 2500 words. Shorter text requires more precision.

One thing that was essential was re-reading the book aloud to our kids over and over again, fine-tuning. After dozens of readings, I found a sentence that just didn't work. I would have missed that if I hadn't read it aloud so often. I'm so relieved I got a chance to fix it.

*in case you're not sure, her name is pronounced "Lay-Win Fam"