Geanna Culbertson, the young author of the Crisanta Knight series (she’s Cinderella’s daughter), is living in a fairy tale
Geanna Culbertson. Photo
by Bondo Wsyzpolski
It was during the summer of 2011, prior to her Sophomore year at USC, that Geanna Culbertson had an inspiration that would change the course of her young life. “I wish there was a more logical way to explain it,” the Peninsula resident says, “but I was literally just sitting somewhere and the exact words, ‘Lady Agnue’s School for Princesses and Other Female Protagonists’ just popped into my head.”
A few months passed, during which time Culbertson took a course taught by Aimee Bender called Classic and Contemporary Fairy Tales. Now, ideas were germinating in Culbertson’s head for a fairy tale of her own, or a whole series of them as we’ll soon see. However, her plate was already full (she not only triple-minored while at USC, she was the vice-president of her sorority and she’d begun interning at Nickelodeon and Disney, and later worked at Paramount).
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“My roommate thought I was probably nuts,” Culbertson says, “but every Friday without fail for the years I was in school, no matter how tired I was or how late I went to bed the night before, every Friday morning I got up around 4 a.m., got ready in the dark, my hair in a ponytail, packed up my bag, and I walked to campus. I was there before dawn, and I worked at that Coffee Bean for about four or five hours before classes started.”
Nothing if not ambitious
Five years later, Geanna Culbertson is midway through the fifth installment of her Crisanta Knight series. The first volume, “Crisanta Knight: Protagonist Bound,” officially releases this coming Tuesday. Although the book is being categorized as Juvenile/Young Adult fiction, it’s about 400 pages. “A lot of words,” the author says, laughing. “A lot of thoughts.”
Furthermore, additional volumes should be appearing with some regularity.
“I’m planning on releasing one approximately every six months. Book two is set to release on December 6 of this year, and book three either in April or May of next year. I’m going to keep on track with that. My goal is to have book eight come out December of 2019.
“The entire series is told mainly from the perspective of Crisanta Knight, my title character,” Culbertson explains, “and she is the daughter of Cinderella.”
And where does the story take place?
Crisanta Knight: Protagonist Bound. The first volume of a projected eight-part series, written by RPV resident Geanna Culbertson
“This world exists in a place called Book, where the children and younger siblings of former fairy characters all live and all exist. If they’re selected as protagonists they all go to this school for protagonists (Lady Agnue’s School for Princesses and Other Female Protagonists, of course; and the nearby Lord Channing’s School for Princes and Other Young Heroes), where they train to be main characters.”
Crisanta Knight pals around with S.J., “which is short for Snow Junior, because she’s the daughter of Snow White,” as well as Blue, “the younger sister of Little Red Riding Hood.” I think we can guess the color of Blue’s cloak.
“I would say I have five main characters that are in every single book without fail.”
Children and younger siblings of well-known fairy tale characters may be plentiful, but there are or will be many new faces as well. Says Culbertson, “I was very careful not to put too much of an emphasis on the past. That’s one thing that was very important to me. An overarching theme in this series is change, and the importance of it.”
In other words, Culbertson isn’t simply putting a new spin on classic fairy tales, she’s moving her characters forward and making them relevant and relatable to young people today.
Even though the stories are told from Crisanta Knight’s point of view, Culbertson says, “since it’s my writing it’s my voice, too, and so it’s told with sass and with snark, and (through) the lens of a modern girl. I always like to say that she’s a very normal girl, just in extraordinary circumstances with fantastical things happening around her.”
That is, a girl both valiant and vulnerable.
A roadmap to completion
If Crisanta Knight is a strong and determined character, so is her creator. “I’m very driven,” she says. “I get up most days before the sun does. If you love something you commit to it a hundred percent. With my book, with my 9 to 5 job (in digital marketing, no less), with my martial arts training (she teaches it, too); I commit to those things completely.”
Culbertson was born and raised in Palos Verdes. She attended Palos Verdes High School. Her first literary success, she says, was a story she wrote in first grade that so impressed her teacher that the latter kept a copy of it to share with her future first grade classes.
Like most writers, Culbertson keeps a leash on her characters and plot developments. Like most writers she also indulges them within bounds.
“I know where I want my characters to end up, I know how I want the series to end, and I know how I want each book to end.” Which doesn’t mean she won’t improvise now and again.
“It’s like being Dorothy in Oz,” she says, “but without the Yellow Brick Road. You know you want to get to the Emerald City and you just don’t have the exact path, but you have the direction you want to go in.” She pauses. “Half the fun is going into the woods, isn’t it?”
No longer second fiddle
Even when she was just writing for herself, Culbertson says, “I had always hoped and prayed that someday the books I would create would give people the joy and the fun that my favorite series have brought to me, where you like the characters and you immerse yourself in that world.” She mentions the Percy Jackson (2005-2009) and Artemis Fowl (2001-2012) series.
This brings us to the books, and series, that Culbertson read while growing up. Most of them, she points out, “have been told from a male protagonist perspective–boy heroes, as it were. I love them, they’re great, but I have really struggled to find a book with a female lead that I like. They don’t put the focus as much on that person’s internal journey as the male hero’s.
“Girl books tend to focus very heavily on the romantic interest first,” Culbertson continues. “My series will definitely have romance; it’s going to have great stuff like that because it’s fun, but I wanted a female heroine that you could pick off the shelf and you’re like, I don’t just like her, I want to be like her. That is what I’m going for: I like her, and I want to be like her. I will close with that sentence.”
Cristanta Knight: Protagonist Bound publishes Tuesday. Available through Amazon, BQB Publishing, and other venues, brick-and-mortar as well as cyberspace. Also, visit Geanna Culbertson’s website at crisantaknight.com.