“I draw the blue heron flying up and protecting her territory. The purest images come as I wake, and I need to catch them before they disappear. As I sketch, the old story my father used to tell echoes in my brain. No wonder the fairy queen of the marsh chose this bird to inhabit. The heron is regal in her blue, asserting her will with shimmering, outstretched wings.” BlueSketchingBook TitleRegalHeronMarsh Queen Book:The Marsh Queen Source: The Marsh Queen
“There was one my dad told me, setting down the book, since he knew the story by heart, about a fairy queen who lived in the center of the marsh. She was both beautiful and terrible, angry at times and kind at others, and rarely seen by mortals. Mostly she took the form of a great blue heron, surveying her kingdom and all the creatures in it. She disdained most humans, except those she helped make the passage into the next world. But if a living person had a sincere wish and she deemed it noble, she would rise up out of the swamp in her true form, with her Spanish-moss hair and her eyes like the sharpest sunbeams, and she would ask the human to perform a nearly impossible task. If they did, she would grant the wish.” BlueSymbolicFairytaleQueenForeshadowingBook TitleMarshHeronMarsh Queen Book:The Marsh Queen Source: The Marsh Queen