J. Lynn Else
J. Lynn Else asked Intisar Khanani:

What was your favorite book as a child? Has that book in any way influenced your writing today?

Intisar Khanani As a child and young adult, I was an inveterate bookworm. It's hard to say what books I loved a kid--I'm pretty sure I read the first few Little House books repeatedly, as well as "Ralph S. Mouse" and "The Mouse and the Motorcycle," but those were very much in my elementary years and I suspect just fed my love of good stories.

In sixth grade I discovered Robin McKinley's "The Hero and The Crown" and "The Blue Sword" in my school's library (in Saudi Arabia, no less). This was definitely a pivotal time for me--awesome girls wielding swords and magic and saving the day? Sign me up! I quickly found the only other such books in our library--Tamora Pierce's Lioness Quartet and a smattering of works by Anne McCaffery. Between those three authors, my love of fantasy was born. While I read widely in our little library, I came back to McKinley many times. This timeframe also saw my first stories written as well--all, curiously enough, featuring strong girls, magic, and (ha!) dragons. I've gotten slightly less dragon-obsessed as I've aged, but the remaining two aspects of my writing have remained unchanged...

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