Elizabeth Lim is the best-selling author of the East Asian-inspired, Six Crimson Cranes and Her Radient Curse as well as several books in the Twisted Tales series. She kindly took the time for a quick interview about her influences, editing her first anathology and her upcoming work. Enjoy!

1. What was the first book(s)/writer that inspired you to write your own stories?

This is a great question, I’d say either Louisa May Alcott or Lucy Montgomery — I read Little Women and Anne of Green Gables pretty early in my childhood, and after encountering characters in those books who loved to write, I decided to give it a try as well!

2. Six Crimson Cranes was inspired by Wild Swans and East Asian folklore, how did you pick and choose which elements to include in your own mythology and which elements did you invent?

I’d say that I kept the overall structure of the traditional Wild Swans fairytale, but the world of Six Crimson Cranes is entirely my own, inspired by ancient China and Japan. Being a lover of folklore and fairytales, whenever I was able to weave in a thread of my favorite stories, I took the chance! Some of it was carefully planned, and some of the allusions are entirely thanks to serendipity.

3. Her Radiant Curse is a prequel, how did you keep track of continuity, callbacks and new inventions in the prequel that wouldn’t ruin the continuity?

I actually wrote much of Her Radiant Curse before writing Six Crimson Cranes, so I didn’t have too many new inventions when I returned to edit my draft. But I did reread Six Crimson Cranes maybe a dozen times to make sure that there were no continuity issues and all the callbacks were in working order.

4. How was editing the Twisted Tales anthology different from your work as a writer on an anthology?

I’ve never edited an anthology before, so it was a joy to work with several author colleagues and collaborate with them. The trickiest part was collaborating with my fellow authors on what their twists for the stories would be, and whether they would be twisting just a scene from one of the films or the entire film itself. I worked closely with my editor Britt at Disney Press to make sure that the overall vision for the anthology would be true to the rest of the Twisted Tales.

5. Any news you can share about upcoming work?

Yes, I can finally announce that I have a Beauty and the Beast reimagining that will launch in summer 2025. In a nutshell, it’s about a young art forger who, to save her family from dire straits (pun intended), enters a marriage contract with a mysterious dragon lord and accompanies him to his underwater kingdom.

To learn more about Lim and her works, you can follow her on all social media and her website: https://www.elizabethlim.com/