Book: Once Upon A Time University
Author: Savannah Ostler
Fantasy,
fiction, YA, teen, clean teen fairytales, adventure, romance
The Basics: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.
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,
Savvy
Tidbit About The Author!
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.
Where You can Find her!
Blog
Twitter:
@SavannahOstler
I was watching a video, and i'll post the link here, and in the people in the video talked about how the hardest part of it all was the stigma. Mental illness is a thing, It's real. And it sucks just as much as any physical ailment. Suicide is still the third leading cause of death, 90% of those deaths had an underlying mental health issue. That says something. Mental illness isn't something that just goes away, it's not something we can pretend doesn't exist. People line up to sign casts, create get well cards but as soon as anxiety, depression, an eating disorder comes up, they leave. In some places people with mental health problems are abused and stripped of human rights.
