Baylee Helton asked Maggie Stiefvater:

Hi Maggie! I have a rather unusual question, but I recently came across your book series in a bookstore in Dallas, TX. It was a signed edition, and inside, there was a little note card where you explained the incredible experience that led to the creation of the series. I've been searching online, but I can't seem to find that note anywhere. Is there a place where I can read it again?

Maggie Stiefvater Hi Baylee, gosh! Was it perhaps the Owlcrate edition of Call Down the Hawk? It had this letter inside:

"I still remember one of the most terrifying moments of my life.

I was a spitfire college student with bad social skills and a worse attitude. Every day I commuted 1.5 hours to school...until I found a shortcut. This narrow road cut off a corner and rejoined the main road later. If you went twice the speed limit, you could shave off 15 minutes.

It was a bad idea.

I did it all the time.

One day, I glimpsed another car ahead of me on this normally empty road. Stranger still was that it was identical to *my* car. Same make, model, color. And when I caught up at a hairpin turn, I saw that the driver was a slight young woman with hair just my color, in a ponytail just like mine. Squarish shoulders, just like mine. Drove just like me.

Suddenly I was terrified.

What if I caught her eye in the mirror and she had *my* face?

I hit the brakes and let her tear off.

Two decades later, I still don't know why it scared me so bad. I do know that the moment I got home, I started writing a story, and that you are holding a box with that story in it now.

I hope you like it.

urs,

Maggie"

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