Title: Once Upon A Time University
Author: Savannah Ostler
Classification: Fiction
Genre: Fantasy, YA, teen, clean teen fairytales, adventure, romance
Blurb:
The enchanting sequel to “Happily Ever After High School”
After graduating Happily Ever High, eighteen year old Albany French was
living the perfect fairy tale. She had her very own fairy godmother, a
delightfully eccentric grandmother, and her boyfriend was her dream knight in
shining armor.
At first, it seemed like a flawless freshman year for her at Once Upon
A Time University. The campus was magical and enchanted, her classes were
extraordinary, and she made surprising new friends.
A chain of unsettling events followed by a twist of fate sends Albany
spinning. She is forced to make the most difficult decision of her life- one
that could potentially break her heart. The perfect happily ever after was
still within Albany’s grasp… or so she thought.
Author's Bio:
Savannah Ostler was born in
Alpine, Utah. Since childhood, she has enjoyed many forms of the arts. It was
from her love of performing that she decided to attend East Hollywood High, a
school in Salt Lake City dedicated to film, television, and writing.
In addition to acting for
both stage and film, Savannah is also a singer, having released several
original pop singles, and performing at well known venues in Hollywood such as
The House Of Blues, and the Roxy theater.
Although Savannah is
incredibly diverse with her talents, her first love is, and has always been
writing. She has been writing ever since she learned how to read and write. She
enjoys many different forms of writing: poetry, lyrics, fiction, and
screenplays. To date, Miss Ostler has written hundreds of original poems, six
original songs produced and performed by Savannah herself, hundreds of lyrics
not yet produced, over a dozen produced short films, five feature film
screenplays, two television pilots, and of course, her first novel Happily Ever
After High School.
Savannah has always been a
day dreamer and a true kid at heart. When she is not buried in her writing
projects, she can be found at Disneyland, living out all of her fairy tale
dreams.
She lives in Los Angeles, CA
with her husband Steve and their two mixed Chihuahua pups.
Twitter: @SavannahOstler
Facebook: www.facebook.com/savannah.ostler
Here's a letter ( or a message ) from Savannah Ostler, the author of Happily Ever After High School!
Hello!
My name is Savannah Ostler, but you can call me Savvy. I LOVE fairy
tales. No, let me rephrase that. I live and breathe fairy tales.
I’m a dreamer born and raised in a small town, and moved to the big
city of Los Angeles to follow my creative ambitions. I’ve loved every minute of
my journey, even if it wasn’t always easy. Having always had a passion for
writing, acting, and singing, living in Los Angeles was the step that I had to
take in order to pay full tribute to my dreams.
Living in the city of opportunity has opened a lot of doors for me in
the span of four years- including acting in commercials, singing at
world-famous concert venues around Hollywood, acting in feature films, stage
productions, producing a series of short films, and having the opportunity to
work on famous studio lots, including Warner Bros. studios, Culver City
studios, Paramount studios, and my own personal favorite, Walt Disney studios.
Being a performer allows me the flexibility of creating my own schedule, giving
me plenty of time to dedicate to my writing- which in the span of just living
in LA, I have added writing two full length novels, five original feature screenplays,
ten short screenplays, Over two dozen poems, fifteen original songs, and a
notebook full of ideas.
My career in LA has definitely been a blast, and I have loved every
second of it. That being said, I would have to say that my most treasured and note-worthy
adventure here in southern California was meeting my husband Steve. I had
always been the kind of hopeless romantic who had believed in the magic of true
love and destiny- and finding my soul mate from southern California only
affirmed that belief. Steve was born and raised in southern California and had
lived in the golden state all his life. To think that I probably wouldn’t have
met him had I not followed my dreams to Los Angeles attests my belief in
destiny, true love, and real life fairy tales. We had our perfect fairy tale,
Cinderella-inspired wedding in an enchanted setting, a perfect
Cinderella-worthy dress and tiara, my perfect prince, and we rode away in a
horse-driven Cinderella coach. Since we are both Disney nerds, we happily were
off to Disneyworld for a royal honeymoon.
Needless to say, I had more than enough inspiration for my fairy tale
fantasy series, “Happily Ever After High School”, and now “Once Upon A Time
University”. I wanted to create a world were fairy tales were not just make
believe- a world where they were thrown into the mix with real modern life. I
wanted to spark the love of fairy tales and imagination in my readers while
also making them believe that true love might actually be not exclusive to
fairy tales. The entire series stemmed from this idea.
Next, came my main character, Albany. I wanted to come up with a unique
name that you don’t hear everyday, and I wanted it to somehow be a little
personal to me. Since I am named after a city, I looked up different city names
across the US, and Albany stuck out to me.
Albany is definitely not your typical eighteen year old. She is
independent, determined, unique, creative, and definitely a day dreamer. She
absolutely has always hated traditional public schools, because she feels like
she doesn’t belong there. Albany doesn’t really have many friends, but the
friends that she does make she keeps for life.
Despite being labeled as an “outcast”, Albany finds contentment in her
books- especially fairy tales.
I love the character of Albany, because I can definitely relate to her.
In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret… She is pretty much me at eighteen
years old. She is a dreamer, she is optimistic, she is bright, she hates math,
and she is not afraid to create her own path and get what she wants in life.
This isn’t to say that Albany doesn’t have her fair share of character
flaws. Believe me, she has just as many flaws as the typical teenage girl. She
is a mess, she can never keep her room clean- or anything for that matter. She
is extremely stubborn and has a very witty and sarcastic sense of humor that
can sometimes come off as cold if not understood. For those who don’t know
Albany, her stubbornness can has the potential to get irritating. In reality,
she just likes to stick to her gut and is not afraid to diverge from the herd.
In fact, that’s what she does best. She’s a girl who knows what she wants, and
she won’t give up until she gets it.
Writing Once Upon A Time University was a blast from the very
beginning. I really let myself get inside Albany’s head and put myself in her
shoes. Being so similar to the character, it was second nature for me. While
writing and editing, I would often times recite Albany’s dialogue aloud to see
how it sounds. The majority of the time, I probably looked like a crazy person
talking to myself. But hey, it was totally fun and helped my process. I also
listened to a ton of music while writing the novel. I created a playlist of the
key songs I listened to over and over again while writing. These are songs that
Albany would totally rock out too as well. We definitely share the same taste
in music. Yes, the list is kind of all over the place as far as music genres
are concerned, but that’s just how we like it ;)
I so hope you enjoy reading the second installment of the enchanted
series as much as I enjoyed writing it!
May all of your fairy tale wishes come true, <3
Savvy
