Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.Gay Author Gregory Maguire Gregory Maguire (born June 9, 1954 in Albany, New York) is an American author. He is the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and many other novels for adults and children. wins raves with his intriguing in·trigue n. 1. a. A secret or underhand scheme; a plot. b. The practice of or involvement in such schemes. 2. A clandestine love affair. v. be be taking with his intriguing new take on the Cinderella story "I seem to be stuck writing stories in which shoes figure prominently," says Gregory Maguire. "In my last book it was ruby ruby, precious stone, the transparent red variety of corundum, found chiefly in Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka and classified among the most valuable of gems. The Myanmarese stones are blood red, the most valued tint being the "pigeon's blood. slippers. This time it's a glass slipper. I'm not sure what this says about me." Maguire is less doubtful about what critics and readers are saying about him. His first novel, 1995's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West Wicked Witch of the West the terror of Oz. [Am. Lit.: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz] See : Evil Wicked Witch of the West uses her powers to upset the plans of Dorothy and her friends. [Am. Lit. and Cin. , kicked off his career with rave reviews and a captivated cap·ti·vate tr.v. cap·ti·vat·ed, cap·ti·vat·ing, cap·ti·vates 1. To attract and hold by charm, beauty, or excellence. See Synonyms at charm. 2. Archaic To capture. cult following This article does not discuss cultist groups, personality cults, or "cult" in its original sense of "religious practice". See cult (disambiguation) for more meanings of the term "cult". . His latest, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (ReganBooks, $24), which revisits the Cinderella story with several queer twists, has been greeted with similar enthusiasm. Twisting popular fairy stories has earned Maguire a big gay following. "Gay men learn early how to deal with being overlooked in certain situations," Maguire says. "In the new book the idea of the ugly stepsister being ignored is a perspective that gay people respond to." Maguire didn't set out to tell a story that appealed specifically to gays. "I wanted to write about what makes things beautiful," he says. "I discovered that sometimes things are beautiful simply because they're permanent, like a diamond, and other times it's because they're fleeting, like a child on his way to school on an October morning. People, both gay and straight, learn to prize the other kind of beauty, like being spectacularly good-looking. My story is about how that beauty can be a kind of curse." Maguire, who recently completed an East Coast reading tour, is looking forward to the day when he can read fairy stories to his newly adopted son, Luke. "Right now he's not much interested in stories," Maguire says. "He's 2 years old, and he's obsessed ob·sess v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es v.tr. To preoccupy the mind of excessively. v.intr. with trucks and trains. Maybe I should forget about shoes and write him a book about moving vehicles." Pela is the Arizona arts correspondent for National Public Radio. To find out more about Gregory Maguire and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, visit www.advocate.com |
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