Titles
Well Wished (1997)
Folk Keeper (1999)
Biography
Oldest of 5 children.
Grew up hearing American folk songs and Scottish ballads sung by her father at bedtime.
Spent 5th grade in Denmark, where she read Hans Christian Anderson (especially "The Snow Queen" and "The Little Mermaid").
After graduating, she attended law school — and didn't like it — and disliked practicing law even more. After five years of being a lawyer, she quit her job and moved to Barcelona (after visiting her sister there), where she read and read and read — and then began to write.
It took fourteen years of writing — working as a bookbuyer in Chicago, getting married, having kids, and writing.
Husband: Richard Pettingill
Daughter: Miranda
Son: Nathaniel
Favourite Books (from past and present)
Green Gables books
Little House
Narnia Chronicles
Wrinkle in Time books
The Land of Green Ginger (Noel Langley)
Once on a Time (A. A. Milne)
Carbonel (Barbara Sleigh)
The Magic Pudding (Norman Lindsay)
The Twilight of Magic (Hugh Lofting)
The Dolls’ House (Rumer Godden)
The Princess and the Goblin (George MacDonald)
Mistress Masham’s Repose (T. H. White)
Black and Blue Magic (Zilpha Keatley Snyder)
The Pushcart War (Jean Merrill)
Norse myths
Andrew Lang fairytale collections
Hans Christian Andersen (in particular, The Snow Queen and The Little Mermaid)
E. Nesbit
Edward Eager
Fire and Hemlock, Dogsbody, and Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones)
Which Witch (Eva Ibbotson)
Playing Beatie Bow (Ruth Park)
The Perilous Gard (Elizabeth Marie Pope)
Beauty (Robin McKinley)
Offsite Pages
Franny Billingsley Website
Article by Patricia Newman, 2001
Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith.
