News & Events
Margi is excited to participate in the Louisiana Book Festival on Saturday, October 29. From 12:30 - 1:30 She’ll be part of a panel that includes Alex London, Marti Dumas, and Jasper Price.
Location: State Library, Fifth Floor, Capitol Room
Booksigning at 1:45 at the Cavalier House Bookselling Tent.
Saturday, October 22, 2:00 - 4:00 pm. Margi will be signing her new titles, WINDSWEPT and LILY LEADS THE WAY, as well as old favorites, at the Bookstore at Fitgers, 600 East Superior St., Duluth, MN
Join Margi for a live virtual presentation, West of the Moon and Other Places You Can’t Get Get to With GPS, co-hosted by the Nordic Spirit Symposium and the California Lutheran University. Enhanced with pictures and storytelling, the presentation is appropriate and entertaining for all ages 10 and up. This live event is free, but you’ll need to register in advance at https://clu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJckduGoqjMpGdKG5rh_u1J2MoN-amtmlcRT.
An old family diary, true immigrant stories, and Scandinavian folk and fairy tales combine to tell the story of West of the Moon, a “mesmerizing tale of Astri’s treacherous and harrowing mid-19th century emigration to America.” (Booklist, starred review). Preus’s research into Norwegian immigration led her to startling revelations about the role of women healers, the relationship between a common 19th century childhood ailment and the belief in changelings, and the reverence and fear our Norwegian ancestors had for The Black Book, “whose pages teach how to recover lost goods, find buried treasure, turn back the attacks of snakes and dogs, and more.”
Margi will discuss how she combined history, fiction, and folklore in this novel and may give a sneak preview of her brand new book Windswept, also inspired by Norwegian fairy tales and populated by trolls. Early (starred) reviews are calling it “fresh, rich, and buoyant” an “inventive, memorable must-read,” and a “must-read grand adventure with unlikely heroes that will appeal to all fantasy lovers.”
The annual Nordic Spirit Symposium is co-sponsored by California Lutheran University, made possible by grants from the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation and Norway House Foundation in San Francisco. Learn more at scandinaviancenter.org.
Interview from the September 2022 issue of Notes from the Horn Book. Photo from Three Princesses in the Mountain Blue.
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.
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…
In early 2020, when the lockdowns began and the pandemic became imminent, just about everyone found a new hobby. "All my writer friends were having trouble writing,” says Margi Preus. “A lot of my friends did other creative things like baking sourdough bread, and painting, and learning to play the ukulele." For Preus, there was also something new on the horizon, but it wasn’t a new hobby – it was a new genre.
Windswept is Preus's first true foray into the world of fantasy. The book was born from a deeper dive into fairytales which was, for Preus, instigated by the pandemic. "In the fairytales, I think I found some comfort," says Preus who grew up being told Norwegian fairytales by her father. One particular story about three girls who aren't allowed outside resonated with Preus - and likely sounds familiar to youth who were kept home from school at any point over the past few years. Windswept is, as Preus says, "an extension of that" story.
Join MN Reads Thursday mornings at 8:20 to hear Minnesota authors talking about their work. Funding provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
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