Photo: Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop: Celebrated author of over sixty books, sharing heartfelt tales woven with family, courage, history, and timeless magic. Photo by Christiane Alsop
Wartime Memories And Historical Depth
Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop shares insights on her memoir, historical fiction, fantasy, and picture books while discussing themes of family, courage, and the creative process that fuels her enduring storytelling.
Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop stands as a paragon of literary brilliance, whose body of work spans generations, genres, and hearts alike. Her career, marked by over sixty titles, embodies a unique blend of creativity, emotional depth, and timeless ingenuity. Under her pen name, Elizabeth Winthrop, she has gifted readers an array of narratives ranging from the enchanting fantasy classics The Castle in the Attic and The Battle for the Castle, to historical fiction masterpieces such as Counting on Grace. Her deft ability to breathe life into characters—whether navigating medieval castles, turn-of-the-century mill towns, or their own family memories—is a testament to her nuanced and evocative storytelling.
Her memoir, Daughter of Spies: Wartime Secrets, Family Lies, takes readers into the intimate landscape of her own family history, unveiling stories intertwined with espionage, love, addiction, and resilience. This profoundly personal work complements the depth and precision evident in her historical fiction, offering a deeply human exploration of her mother’s life as an MI5 agent during World War II and the nuanced complexities of their relationship.
Elizabeth’s versatility extends beyond novels to picture books with titles like Dumpy La Rue and The First Christmas Stocking, each characterised by a whimsical charm delicately balanced with heartfelt themes. Her works for children, celebrated with accolades including the California Young Reader’s Medal and the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, consistently resonate with young minds and instil values of courage, imagination, and connection.
The forthcoming prequel to The Castle in the Attic reflects her knack for weaving multi-dimensional stories, rooted in historical richness yet imbued with magical intrigue. From a wartime beach in 1943 England to the medieval magnificence of a newly constructed castle, her creativity knows no bounds—a reminder that her imagination, like her characters, continues to surprise and enlighten.
As an author who writes across genres and age ranges, Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop remains an inspiring figure for aspiring writers. Her advice—to remain open to life’s passing moments and document even the smallest sparks—is a fitting homage to her ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. This interview invites us behind the curtain of a true literary luminary who has given readers works filled with courage, family, whimsy, and magic for decades. Her words beckon us to embrace vulnerability and the boundless possibilities of creative exploration.
Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop’s unmatched versatility and heartfelt narratives across genres solidify her legacy as a literary icon of imagination.
How did writing your memoir Daughter of Spies differ emotionally and technically from crafting historical fiction like Counting on Grace and Dear Mr. President?
Character drives my work, be it fiction, historical fiction or memoir. In the case of historical fiction like Counting on Grace and Dear Mr. President, the character comes to me through the research. In the case of my memoir, Daughter of Spies, my mother and I were the two main characters. Her memories and mine led me to the research which allowed me to tell our stories, both separately and intermingled, in greater depth.
What made you decide to focus your memoir on your mother?
My father, Stewart Alsop, was a famous journalist. Books and plays have been written about him, and he wrote his own memoir, Stay of Execution, about facing death after a dire leukemia diagnosis. When my five brothers and I were growing up in the secretive world of Cold War Washington, my mother, a young British war bride, lived in the shadow cast by my father’s outsized reputation. None of us ever really knew her, least of all her only daughter. As she began to slip into dementia, I was determined to tell the story of her life as an MI5 decoding agent in London during World War II, the frustrations of her post-war role in America as the wife of a famous man and the mother of six children, and the ways her loneliness and addiction affected me. In the end, as often happens with memoir, I learned as much about myself as I did about my mother.
“As often happens with memoir, I learned as much about myself as I did about my mother.” – Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop
Having never outlined The Castle in the Attic, how did you navigate plot twists and character arcs without a predetermined structure?
In writing The Castle in the Attic, l learned to let the characters take the lead. Nowadays, I keep what I call a journal of the book and that’s where I talk myself through the upcoming scenes and ask myself questions. Can I trap this character in a watery cave with the tide rising? I like the idea, but who will rescue her and how? Outlining books traps me in my earliest scenarios and I begin to serve the outline more than the needs, wants and actions of my characters. When I free them (and myself) from the outline, they speak to me and make moves that surprise me in all the best ways.They come alive for me, and hopefully, for the reader.
What inspired the return to your medieval fantasy world in the upcoming Castle in the Attic prequel centered on Richard?
I finished The Battle for the Castle, the sequel to The Castle in the Attic,seven years after Castle. In re-reading the two books, I realized that there should be an overarching villain, one who sent both the evil wizard Alastor, and the monster rats. What better way to introduce that villain but in a prequel? Mrs. Phillips’ brother, Richard, was the reason she had to leave William and return to England, so as the reader had already heard of him, he was the natural focus of the prequel. Daughter of Spies is partially set in England during World War II, so I relished the idea of a character who time travels from 1943 Northumberland where, in the shadow of a ruined castle, the beaches are mined to repel a German invasion to the exact same spot in 1366 where that same castle has just been erected.
“As often happens with memoir, I learned as much about myself as I did about my mother.” – Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop
Your picture books, such as The First Christmas Stocking and The Biggest Parade, explore family themes—how do you balance whimsy with deeper emotional resonance?
The picture book form, like a poem, gives the writer lots of room to explore within a tight structure. In most cases you have28 pages (32 pages minus 4 pages of front matter) to tell your story. You give away half the story to the illustrator so in Shoes, when I wrote, “Shoes for sliding, shoes for hiding, high topped shoes for horseback riding,” the illustrator is the one who put my characters on metal horses riding a carousel. The words can inspire a sense of whimsy in the illustrator. Another way to bring in whimsy is to make an animal the central character as I did in The Biggest Parade and its prequel, Dog Show. In those books, Harveythe dog owner, is the foolish one and his basset houndFred, the wise sidekick. Kids connect with the character they most admire be it a person or a dog so it’s possible to introduce tougher emotional subjects in many ways such as using rhymes, puns and unlikely characters, to name a few.
Counting on Grace shines in school curricula—how did you approach writing a historical novel with educational value and compelling narrative?
Counting on Grace was inspired by a photograph that the great child labor photographer,Lewis Hine, took of a small girl working in a Vermont textile factory. When I studied her worried expression, her filthy smock, her bare feet covered in oil, I knew I wanted to tell her story. At that point, I wasn’t interested in the actual child, so I created Grace, a 10-year-old girl of French-Canadian descent, forced to work in the mill six days a week. Once again, because I did such deep research on what life was like for those children in the town of North Pownal, Vermont in 1910, the reader and I were both grounded in that place and time which makes for a compelling narrative. Readers Grace’s age can easily imagine what life might have been like for them if they had been born in a mill town over 100 years ago.
With over sixty books published, how do you keep your storytelling fresh while revisiting recurring themes like courage, family and magic?
Stories come to me from all directions, both inside from something I’ve experienced or from outside when for example, I overhear an interesting conversation. As long as I bring an honest emotional perspective to the work, the storytelling stays fresh.
What single piece of advice would you give aspiring authors striving to write across genres and age‑ranges like you’ve done?
Stay open to whatever or whomever crosses your path and write it all down, even the bits and pieces that seem inconsequential. They could end up as the core of your next story.
