Today we are blessed to have Carrie Anne Noble on the blog! She’s here to answer a few questions for us in honor of her newest novel, The Springborn.

What was your main inspiration for The Springborn? Hello! I was first inspired to write about a girl with antlers when I was poking around on Pinterest, looking for story ideas. The image made me wonder how a girl with a gift like that would be treated by society and her family. I wanted to write about her struggle to accept herself and her journey to find a place of belonging.

Why did you choose a Pennsylvania coal town in the 1880s as your setting? The setting needed to be someplace isolated and bleak, a town with hard edges and little tolerance for the unusual. Back in the late 1800’s and into the 1900’s, the mining companies owned not just the mines, but also the houses the miners lived in and the store where they shopped—the entire town. If you did something to offend the bosses, you could lose absolutely everything. The town Sabella’s family lived in was also populated by people who feared magic—so she would never get a warm welcome there.

Can you tell us a bit about the behind the scenes experience of writing The Springborn? Did you feel like the story came to you easily or were there moments you had writers block? A lot of the original inspiration for this story came from pictures I collected on Pinterest: a girl with antlers, a boy with bird legs, a mustachioed man with heavy black eyeliner (see the board here: https://pin.it/3hKpFyJl6). I wrote the first draft in November 2018, and then I worked on revisions for months. Eventually, I gave it to an editor friend to get feedback, but before I could dive back in, a lot of hard stuff happened that kept me from working much for years. It was a struggle to go back to the story and to believe it would ever be worth reading. I wouldn’t call it writer’s block as much as self-doubt mixed in with the grief of losing several loved ones. Fortunately, some wonderful friends never stopped asking about “the antler girl book” and encouraged me to finish it. I worked harder on The Springborn than I have ever worked on anything, and in spite of all the wrestling and tears, I’m so glad I saw it through to completion.

**The Springborn is told from two perspectives, can you talk about why you chose to do that?** Originally, the only perspective belonged to Sabella, but I woke up one morning last summer and my very first thought was that I should add Calder’s perspective. The idea freaked me out because it meant making a lot of big changes, but in the end, I think including Calder’s side of the story strengthened the book immeasurably. Lesson: listen to the voice of inspiration when it whispers to you at dawn!

What is an aspect to Sabella’s character that you really enjoyed creating and diving into? Her teenager-ness—in that she’s trying to find her place in the world while dealing with huge, unfamiliar emotions, and learning to make decisions without a parent’s continual guidance. It’s such a wonderful, awful, unique time of life, and one that can definitely shape who we become as adults.

What about for Calder? Calder was fun to write because he always follows his heart, even when it leads him to make questionable decisions. He’s impulsive, brave, and loyal to a fault. Also, he has spectacular moth wings! (Interestingly, moths symbolize being drawn to the light and embracing new beginnings—things that are important parts of Sabella’s journey.)

What is something you want readers to take away from reading your book? I hope they’ll look at their own unique qualities and creative gifts as something to celebrate, and want to use them to make the world a better, more beautiful place.

Want to know more about The Springborn? 

Once upon a winter’s day, a childless miner and his wife find baby Sabella in a basket. When she suddenly grows a pair of antlers, they hide her from the world. Little do they know, in seventeen years, a charming boy with the wings of a moth will show her where she truly belongs.

In the wake of her thrilling past as a theater student, restaurant hostess, nurse aide, and newspaper writer, Carrie Anne Noble now crafts enchanting fiction for teens and adults. Her debut novel The Mermaid’s Sister won the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Young Adult Fiction and the 2016 Realm Award for Book of the Year. Her other books include YA fantasies entitled The Gold-Son and Gretchen and the Bear. Carrie lives in the Pennsylvania mountains, where she enjoys taking walks, frolicking with her half-Corgi, and hosting the occasional mad tea party.

You can find her website, Instagram, Facebook, X, and Bookbub