By Chelsea Hochstin
and Jenna Mamorsky

Let’s face it. Every young girl has dreamed of becoming a princess. But what is it about being a princess that every girl wants? The glitz, the glamour, the clothes, the limos are just some of the perks that make young girls intrigued by what seems like the most perfect life. This fantasy doesn’t just exist for American girls. Girls all around the world in Finland, Singapore, Korea to New Zealand, imagine what it would be like to have it all!

In The Princess Diaries, author Meg Cabot makes this dream come true for Mia Thermopolis, who becomes the modern day princess of Genovia. Overnight, Mia’s teenage life changes - she learns that she is a real life princess from her grandmere. Giving up her regular high school teenage life for a life full of princess lessons, doing everything “just right”, media coverage, may not be a part of her future plans.

While this may seem like an extraordinary story, for Meg Cabot it is the foundation for success. Yet, it was through hard work and constant writing, even when she didn’t have the inspiration to write, that Cabot found success. Searching for fame and fortune in New York City after college, Cabot ended up with a not-so-famous job as a college dormitory “mom,” and writing in her spare time. She found inspiration in the everyday funny and sometimes not so funny experiences of the college freshmen she looked after. After her dad passed away, Cabot realized how precious life is, and that it was important to take a chance in pursuing her life-long passion. She began to submit manuscripts to publishers, and got her first big break with adult historical romance novels, which were published by St. Martin’s Press and which she wrote under the name Patricia Cabot.

The manuscript for The Princess Diaries did not receive a regal welcoming from publishers - which is probably hard for her dedicated readers to believe! Cabot decided to plug into the teenage book market, noticing that there weren’t a lot of books for young teenage girls to choose from. It took her a long time to get her original manuscript for The Princess Diaries to get noticed. Despite the rejections, she was determined to get her book published. Coming up empty with the first publisher who felt that no one would read a book about a girl becoming a princess, Cabot persisted, and the rest is history. The Princess Diaries has become a popular series, with Princess in the Spotlight (published Spring 2001) and Princess in Love expected out in March 2002.

Today, those same publishers are probably very disappointed that they didn’t give The Princess Diaries a better read. With over hundreds of thousands of copies sold in this country and abroad, and many thousands who saw the Disney movie, The Princess Diaries this past summer, Cabot has created a kingdom fit for a queen! She now is under contract for other books and a Disney movie sequel.

Where do her great ideas come from? Cabot referred to the diaries she kept throughout high school where her themes for the books and many of her characters originate. Many of the characters are real life people from her teenage years - although some may not even know it! She says with a giggle, “Even today, the real “Lilly” doesn’t know it is her!”

Cabot’s follow-up to The Princess in the Spotlight, The Princess in Love has already created a lot of interest, and more surprises are in store for Fall 2002 when Harper Collins will publish Cabot’s Nicola and the Viscount, a young adult historical romance and All-American Girl, a story about a girl who saves the President’s life. Although Cabot remained tight-lipped, not wanting to give away any specifics about what is going to happen in any of these books, we do know that they are certain to be just what teenage girls are eager to read.