Valerie GribbenNewSouth Books published VALERIE GRIBBEN's first novel, Fairytale, in 2003, when she was seventeen. She majored in English at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she was a USA Today First Team Academic All-American. As an undrgraduate, Valerie founded Healing Words, a volunteer group of students who read to hospital patients and nursing-home residents. She is currently enrolled in the University of Alabama's medical program, where she created a group for students to share writings about their experiences as medical students and read works by physician-authors. Valerie completed two sequels to Fairytale while in college and medical school -- The Emperor's Realm and The Three Crowns; the three are collected in The Fairytale Trilogy. Bestselling author R. A. Nelson calls The Fairytale Trilogy "fast-paced, imaginative, and delightful, with wonderful characters!" Valerie's op-ed "Practicing Medicine Can Be Grimm Work," about the role fairy tales play in medicine, appeared in The New York Times on June 30, 2011. Read More Read Less