PHOTO: Leah Cypess, acclaimed author of fantasy and fairy tale retellings, brings enchantment and insight to every story she tells.
Award-Winning Author Reimagines Classic Stories With Depth And Heart
Leah Cypess discusses her middle grade fantasy work, her shift from YA, and how research and personal history shape her intricate retellings of beloved fairy tales.
Leah Cypess writes with the assured hand of someone who understands not only story, but its roots—the myths and histories that pulse beneath fairy tales and fantasy alike. Her narratives shimmer with possibility, grounded in the emotional truths of sisterhood, longing, and choice. Whether in her acclaimed Sisters Ever After series or her incisive short fiction, she brings new breath to well-worn tales, unearthing nuances both poignant and strange.
A finalist for both the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, Cypess is as meticulous as she is imaginative. Her background in law lends a structural elegance to her plots, while her passion for research and history adds depth to her fictional realms. In Sea Swept, the final entry in her Sisters Ever After series, she dives—quite literally—into a mermaid’s world, blending classic lore with modern resonance.
What distinguishes her work, however, is not just its intellectual clarity or fantastical allure, but the gentle yet firm way it respects its readers—especially young ones. In every page, there is curiosity without condescension, wonder tempered by wisdom. It is a rare and generous gift.
In Sea Swept, Daria leaves her underwater home to rescue her sister—what inspired you to explore merfolk perspectives in the final Sisters Ever After instalment?
The Little Mermaid is one of my favorite fairy tales. Partly it’s because the original Hans Christian Andersen version is simultaneously beautiful, haunting, and disturbing; partly it’s because I have always loved and been drawn to the sea. As a young writer, I attempted several versions of a book about the Little Mermaid’s daughter, all of them involving a main character who longed for the ocean and didn’t understand why. None of them worked well enough to get past the first ten thousand words or so… but I certainly wasn’t going to finish this series without including a Little Mermaid retelling!
With Braided preceding Sea Swept, how did weaving multiple sisterly storylines influence your narrative approach?
I loved writing a series with the theme of relationships between sisters, because these relationships come in so many different kinds that I never had to repeat myself. Braided explored the relationship between two sisters who had never met. The Little Mermaid, in contrast, is about two sisters who are very different from each other—one determined to live on dry land, the other preferring her life in the sea—and how they come to understand each other despite their differences.
The Last Rose and The Piper’s Promise both reimagine classic fairy tales—how do you balance originality while honouring their beloved origins?
The first step is to find their origins! Most fairy tales have been retold so many times that the popular versions are pretty far from the original, and in some cases nobody really agrees on what the original is. I usually do a lot of research, which plants the seeds of the plot, and then force myself to ignore most of that research so I can write a story that’s true to my characters.
Transitioning from YA fantasy (Death Sworn, Mistwood) into middle grade fairy tale series, how has your audience’s growth shaped your writing voice?
I found transitioning from a YA voice to a middle grade voice very difficult at first. In fact, while I was writing the first three Sisters Ever After books, I established a strict policy of not reading any YA novels, so that I wouldn’t slip back into a YA voice while writing. At this point, the middle grade voice has become more natural for me and I don’t have to be as careful, but it is something that’s always on my mind.
Having a background in biology and law, as detailed on your bio, what skills from those careers play most into your world building and plot structure?
I never had a career in biology—I liked the subject, but it turned out that I was phenomenally bad at working in the lab. My time as a lawyer did teach me some useful skills, though, such as research and time management. Another habit I gained from being a lawyer was to strictly respect both word limits and deadlines. As a lawyer, if you missed a deadline, you could lose the entire case, and we were all told stories of judges who, if your brief was longer than allowed, would simply cut off the extra pages and throw them in the garbage. I have noticed that the publishing world is not quite as extreme, but I still retain those habits. And I also know it makes everyone’s lives easier when I meet my deadlines.
Your short story “Waiting to Happen” appeared in 2025 in Sunday Morning Transport—how does your short form writing inform your longer novel arcs?
They are very different art forms, but it’s sometimes not clear to me whether an idea is going to be a short story or a novel until I’ve sat down with a pen and paper and started writing it. Often it’s a question of how much time I want to spend with a character or world. It also has to do with complexity: a short story can turn on a single idea or concept, but a novel needs a lot of threads to sustain it.
In the case of “Waiting to Happen,” I always knew it would be a story because it’s written in second person, and I didn’t see myself sustaining that form through an entire novel.
Under the pen name Leah Sokol you write Judaica for children—how does that deeply personal work influence your speculative fiction themes?
Almost all my Judaica books are either historical fiction or historical fact, so I do a lot of research for them—and that research invariably influences how I build my fantasy worlds. I do my best to read history even when I’m not actively researching something, because I think the more you know about the real pre-modern world, the more effectively you can create a complex and believable fantasy world.
What’s the one piece of practical advice you’d most wish aspiring authors of fantasy and middle grade fiction to embrace?
Hmm, I already said to read history, so I’ll have to come up with a new one! I’ll go with something super-practical: before you send in your final manuscript, read it OUT LOUD. It’s an invaluable tool for polishing up your writing and catching mistakes, awkward phrases, and unrealistic dialogue.
