About Evangeline Denmark
The Short Version
Evangeline Denmark’s debut Young Adult novel, Curio, was an RT Reviews Top Pick, and USA Today’s HEA blog called the world-building “two levels of genius.” She has also co-authored children’s books and published shorter works of fantasy. Fairy tales, folklore, and magical elements form her creative substrate and weave through every project, whether she’s writing about this world or another.
Evangeline is an active member in her local arts community and is passionate about encouraging creativity in young people. She lives in Colorado with her engineer/artist husband, two kids, a passel of cats, and one long-suffering cattle dog.
Evangeline is represented by Nephele Tempest of The Knight Agency.
The Long Version
My earliest memories are of Texas trees, a creaking porch swing, and STORIES. Words and books filled my house, my life, and my mind from the very beginning. My mother read us the classics, made up bedtime stories, and eventually published her own novels. Perhaps you’ve read The Dragonkeeper Chronicles?
You might think I was one of those quiet, bookish girls who knew she wanted to be an author when she grew up, but I didn’t separate storytelling from existing when I was young. It didn’t occur to me until my teen years that make-believe was a skill or that writing was a pursuit.
Those early teen years were spent between the pages of Jane Eyre or poking along banks of the Rio Grande River with my brother. Our family had swapped Texas thunderstorms and cicada song for Colorado mountains and the tumultuous tune of snow-fed streams. When we eventually moved away from the river, it took me months to learn to sleep without its lullaby.
My own creative rivulets converged into the study of literature and writing in college, and my fanciful heart found an anchor in a certain irresistible engineering student, who—despite his scientific brain—possessed the soul of an artist. I finished my college career with a BA in English, a husband, and a baby boy.
A second baby followed, and my days were again filled with children’s stories. My first book, The Dragon and the Turtle, came about because of a bedtime story I told my youngest. When a third pregnancy ended in miscarriage, I immersed myself further in the storytelling that had always been central to my identity. I wrote four novels before I wrote The One—the book that found a publisher.
The year Curio was published, our family experienced a crisis that changed our “normal,” and my writing journey took a few detours. But those side trips that have us thinking we’re lost or heading in the wrong direction are so often the plot points that make up The Story—our story. I’m thankful for each step, even when the path was narrow, dark, and rocky.
I still live and breathe story, and sometimes I even manage to pull those tales from my cells and type them up. I will never be done with this living story, but I will let go of the scraps I can and trust they’ll find new pathways.