Michele Hauser Interview
Author: The Crystal Palace: Rescue of the Baby Fairy Prince
What audience did you have in mind for your career as a writer – adult or children?
After teaching elementary school, and reading plenty of books to children, I knew that children would be my audience. I loved the picture books and the chapter books, but I knew my artwork was not good enough for picture books. I wanted to capture the childlike qualities, but to respect the strength and intelligence of the children as well. That is what I have tried to do.
If you didn’t write as a child, then when did you start writing and what inspired you to start? What other jobs you had before you became a writer/illustrator?
I began writing after years as an elementary school teacher and then middle school English teacher. I became a UCLA Writing Project Fellow, which whetted my appetite for creative writing. The biggest impetus was the birth of my grandchildren. I found I kept wanting to write for them. I wrote a parenting book for my sons and daughters-in-laws before their first children were born, lullaby books for each grandchild, eight picture books, and one chapter book for my grandchildren. These were not published. Finally, I wrote The Crystal Palace: Rescue of the Baby Fairy Prince, with my then eight-year-old granddaughter as illustrator. This was my first published book, but my granddaughter already has a character drawn that she wants in the sequel!
What gave you the idea for The Crystal Palace: Rescue of the Baby Fairy Prince?
When I was a child I loved The Golden Book of Elves and Fairies. The pages were filled with intricate, detailed pictures of elves, fairies, brownies, leprechauns, and even a mer-baby. My sister and I poured over that book. Those images have stayed with me, and I draw from those memories in imagining my fairy characters.
Further, when I was growing up, my tooth fairy was named Angela. My creative mother had “Angela” write me letters each time she exchanged one of my missing teeth for a quarter. Angela told me that she lived in the knothole of a tree in our back yard. This, of course, added to the fairy details that sparked my imagination. Not surprisingly, the main fairy character in my book is named Angela.
When my granddaughter was born, I sent her postcards of fairies and bought her books about fairies, probably because of my childhood fascination with them. Then, when I was furnishing our home in Illinois, which we bought to have a place near our grandchildren, I chose a pewter bed with large crystals, two on the footboard and two on the headboard, for the guest room, which would be my granddaughter’s room when she visited. Those crystals sparked my imagination as well, bringing up images of fairies to me. I knew I would write a book about a fairy coming out of one of those crystals, and that is what I did.
What are you working on now? When do you expect to start submitting it to publishers?
Now that The Crystal Palace: Rescue of the Baby Fairy Prince is launched, I am beginning a sequel, prompted by my granddaughter’s vision of Fairy Princess Gianna. Once again, Karina and her friends will travel, via the crystal, to Fairyland, this time to attend the fairy prince Jeremy’s third birthday celebration. While there, the girls will once more be pulled in to helping, this time during the rebellion of the trolls and ogres. I expect to start submitting this to the publishers by next fall. My now nine-year-old granddaughter will continue as illustrator.
What do you most want the students to get out of your school visits?
My school visits include an interactive creative writing/illustrating workshop for elementary school children. When possible, I take my granddaughter illustrator with me, as I think seeing a young illustrator will give other children courage and confidence to write/illustrate themselves. The children create their own images of characters from the book, based on the description in the book; they also build characteristics and then draw and/or write to create their own characters. My main goal is for children to recognize that books are created by people, and that they can create too.
Anything else?
I was born an “army brat” at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. With my family, I moved to Maryland, Iran, Ohio, Illinois, then to California. Besides writing and illustrating for my grandchildren, I enjoy singing in our church choir with my husband, playing golf, learning bridge, and traveling. Besides travel to Illinois and Florida to visit our six grandchildren, my husband and I have traveled to Taiwan, Fiji, Europe, and Hawaii. We own a timeshare to facilitate this travel, as well as reunions with family.