Peninsula People Oct 2017

Game”) in December of 2016. After
the second volume was published
Culbertson was contacted by a publicist,
“who really, really believes in
me,” the author says. She arranged
a book tour, which began a couple
of weeks back to coincide with the
publication of the third volume
(“Crisanta Knight: Inherent Fate”).
Culbertson’s stops were in Florida,
Alabama, and Louisiana; her itinerary
being schools, libraries, and
bookstores.
The fourth installment of
Crisanta Knight’s adventures (“The
Liar, The Witch, & The Wormhole”)
is undergoing final edits and is
scheduled for release on June 1,
2018.
“I was really excited to finish this
one because Book Four is larger
than the others by a significant degree,”
Culbertson says. “Even after
reading it so many times, I still
smile and laugh at the jokes and I’m
still into it. To me that’s a good sign.
Not that I toot my own horn, but
you can take this book to the bank,
it’s that good. I’m very confident
about Four; it’s going to be awesome.”
Maybe. In Book Four, Crisanta
Knight and her sidekicks find themselves
in different lands, and not
just in the world of Book. Culbertson
says she never wanted to go the
usual route, where writers take a
classic fairy tale and then merely
extend or add a sequel to it.
Instead, she says, “I wanted to
create a world where every version
of every fairy tale makes sense and
can co-exist. In order to do that, I
had to create a lot of very elaborate
timelines.” Culbertson mentions
spreadsheets, equations, calendars
and maps. The result is 14 or 15
total worlds, she says, where famous
literary characters interact
with one another and cross back
and forth into various realms. It certainly
seems ambitious, regardless
of whether or not she can pull it off.
And then there’s Book Five,
which Culbertson is on the verge of
completing. Then six, seven, and
eight, the last in the series scheduled
for the spring of 2021.
“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,”
Culbertson 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?”
A girl in the driver’s seat
Culbertson was born and raised
in Palos Verdes. She attended Palos
Verdes High School and today lives
near Portuguese Bend. Not yet a full
time writer (though you’d never
know it), she has a 9 to 5 job in digital
marketing and on weekends
teaches and trains in martial arts.
Culbertson has also allied herself
with Girls on the Run, Los Angeles,
a non-profit organization with a
focus on empowering young girls to
grow up and be strong and confident
about who they are and what
they can achieve. The Crisanta
Knight series is a kind of corporate
sponsor for them and their twiceyearly
5K runs. “The reason I paired
with it in the first place,” Culbertson
says, “is because it really aligns
with the values that I’m trying to instill
with my series. Not only just
girl power but also reaching your
potential.”
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 that
Culbertson read 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,”
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 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.”
The Crisanta Knight series, volumes
one through three, are available
through Amazon, BQB Publishing,
and other venues, brick-and-mortar as
well as cyberspace. Also, visit Geanna
Culbertson’s website at Crisantaknight.com.
PEN
October 2017 • Peninsula 67