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Catherine Hemmerling | The Books that Shaped Me
Author Guest / August 1, 2018

I am often asked who my favorite authors are, but I don’t know that anyone has asked me what my favorite books are and how they may have shaped who I am as an author. I’d like to talk about three books that have contributed to who I am today. THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, C.S. Lewis To be fair, I loved all of the Chronicles of Narnia, but this first book in the series really set me on the path to exploring my own imagination. A secret world only accessible by magic? Children heroes? Animals that can talk? Yes, it is fair to say, I loved Narnia from the get-go. I think what really set it apart from the fairy tales and children books I had previous read, was that it wasn’t always so “happily ever after”. Real problems were presented to the characters in the story. Characters died, got lost, and went over to the “dark side”. Despite a clearly fantastical setting, these stories felt more real to me. I was able to really immerse myself in the stories and by the end of the book, I felt as if the characters were my friends. I…