Lisa Stringfellow Publishes Her Second Middle-Grade Novel, Kingdom of Dust
“I have always been a lover of fairy tales,” said Lisa Stringfellow, who teaches Class I and Class II English at Winsor. In addition to her classroom teaching, Ms. Stringfellow holds several leadership roles as a Class I coordinator and the Lower School community and inclusion coordinator. And despite wearing many hats, she still finds time to write.
Back in February 2022, Ms. Stringfellow headlined an all-school assembly to talk about her debut novel A Comb of Wishes and also invited the school community to join her virtual book launch event at the Brookline Booksmith. Several of Ms. Stringfellow’s students were among those who participated in the Q&A.
Her sophomore book, which was published in August 2024, is a take on a princess in a tower story with a medieval West-African influence. Kingdom of Dust follows the story of Amara, a girl who is determined to return both magic and justice to her people—and whose destiny holds more surprises than she could ever imagine.
On November 21, Ms. Stringfellow took the stage in the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Theater for a short lecture on reimagining folktales, fairy tales, and retellings in middle-grade fiction. This special all-school assembly was attended by Lower School students and guests from the Boston Latin School. Afterward, copies of Kingdom of Dust were given to everyone courtesy of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation.
Students were treated to a masterclass taught by Ms. Stringfellow, which covered topics including the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, known as the ATU Index, a classification system used in folklore studies. The system is based on identifying motifs and repeated narrative ideas that serve as story building blocks. Using Cinderella as an example, Ms. Stringfellow highlighted common motifs for the audience including H36.1 “the slipper test” and D1065.2 “the magic shoe.” In the ATU, fairy tales are a type of folktale classified under tales of magic, which is where Kingdom of Dust falls.
Ms. Stringfellow initially set her book in Europe, but kept getting stuck when it came to worldbuilding. Ella Enchanted author Gail Carson Levine read the first chapter of Ms. Stringfellow’s book at a conference workshop and offered some advice. “Medieval is a time period, not a place,” she told Ms. Stringfellow.
Playing off ATU 310 “maiden in the tower,” Ms. Stringfellow explained to students how she made the motif her own by placing the story in medieval west Africa instead of Europe, all while drawing on Igbo mythology and Nigerian culture to influence the food, names of characters, and setting. Readers will recognize other common fairy tale tropes—an orphaned main character, an evil king, a sidekick, a hero’s journey, and found family. However, instead of being rescued from the tower by a handsome prince, Ms. Stringfellow subverts the common storyline, instead flipping the traditional narrative so that the main character saves herself.
Students were able to ask questions and some wanted to know her biggest frustration as a writer while others wondered about her inspiration. While A Comb of Wishes took eight years to write, Kingdom of Dust was written on her publisher’s deadline in just 18 months. “That was a really hard experience,” she recalls. During the writing process, she felt mounting pressure and encountered writer’s block, which made it hard to write. She additionally faced stressors from the coronavirus pandemic, including virtual school. As with many projects during the coronavirus pandemic, Kingdom of Dust was ultimately delayed.
A self-described “huge book nerd,” Ms. Stringfellow told students that her childhood librarians knew her well and would save books for her. Unfortunately, despite being a voracious reader of fantasy—A Wrinkle in Time, The Dark Is Rising, and The Chronicles of Narnia were all favorites—she didn’t see herself in stories or find characters that spoke to her personal experiences. “I didn’t see anything that reminded me of myself,” she shared with students, “a child of someone who migrated from the south or from the Caribbean.” As with A Comb of Wishes, Kingdom of Dust is another offering to that young book lover. “I wanted to write a fairy tale that a child version of me would have loved,” she said.
One student asked how many books she hopes to write. Ms. Stringfellow answered, “As many as I can.”
