Interview from the September 2022 issue of Notes from the Horn Book. Photo from Three Princesses in the Mountain Blue.
Q1: How did the idea for this story come about?
Margi Preus: I started thinking about this story in the early part of 2020 when the world was shutting down because of the pandemic. Simultaneously, Minnesota (where I live) was having the windiest year on record, with gusts of thirty miles an hour or more during a time that is usually cold but generally still. There was a certain apocalyptic feel to the wind, the pandemic, and, okay, also the political situation. Although there were all kinds of things to write about, like a lot of other writers I know, I found it difficult to write, and so I didn’t. Instead, I read fairy tales. Especially Norwegian ones. One of them, “The Three Princesses in the Mountain Blue” (or “Blue Mountain,” in some translations) is about three princesses who are not allowed to go outside until they are fifteen years old, lest a snow flurry come and take them. Which of course is what happens. That story gave me a way into Windswept, and other fairy tales led me the rest of the way through.
Q2. How did you decide which “Other Times” troubles to reference?
MP: I wanted to — maybe I needed to — imagine a time on the other side of climate catastrophe when Earth might be starting to heal. What might that look like? What problems might remain, human nature being what it is? Of course, the troubles of the “Other Times” are the troubles we face right now…