Kelly Barnhill: Hello. My name is Kelly Barnhill, and I'm the author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon. I feel very close to this particular book, and so it's kind of fun for me to share it with other people. But one thing about this story, about the writing about this story, I knew what the story was going to be for a long time before I wrote it, but one thing that I didn't know was the landscape. That was strange for me because all of my stories usually start with the landscape.

The landscape is what pulls me into the story, typically, but I didn't have a good sense of the landscape at all. I had been married for 15 years, but my husband and I went on our honeymoon. It took us that long because we're slow, and we went down to Costa Rica.

Both he and I are former park rangers, so we really enjoyed going to the more rugged national parks. And we went hiking, and they had to give us all kinds of information about how to hike in a volcanic landscape, because it's very, very dangerous. There was one volcano that we could not summit because the air was bad.

That struck me, that notion. How can air be bad? And they explained to me what happened, and what happens with this particular volcano, and that was so amazing to me. We would pass by these mudpots, where there's just boiling mud all the time. And we would pass by these places where steam was just forever spewing into the air. And that was really, really cool for me.

In the meantime, I had been thinking about this story and thinking about this book. I was ready to start writing it. So I had this little purple notebook, and I went outside, in the swampy, mucky air, it was all heavy with flowers and birdsong. And I wrote the first chapter, and I realized, it's a volcanic landscape. That's why they can't cross the forest. Because it's so dangerous. And they've told this story that it's the witch that makes it so. But all stories that lie, they all have true facts in them.

So this idea that people would be telling story after story that had bits of the truth, but it was all turned around on its head, it was all told slant, so even truthful items became lies in the context of this narrative. I'm just gonna read to you the very first chapter.

It's chapter one: In Which a Story Is Told.

"Yes. There is a witch in the woods. There has always been a witch.

Will you stop your fidgeting for once? My stars, I have never seen such a fidgety child.

No, sweetheart. I have not seen her. No one has. Not for ages. We've taken steps so that we will never see her. Terrible steps.

Don't make me say it, you already know. Anyway.

Oh, I don't know, darling. No one knows why she wants children. We don't know why she insists it must always be the very youngest among us. It's not as though we could just ask her. She hasn't been seen. We make sure that she won't be seen.

Well, of course she exists! What a question. Look at the woods, so dangerous, poisonous smoke, and sinkholes, and boiling geysers, and terrible dangers every which way. You think it was all by accident, Ravish? It was the witch.

And if we don't do as she says, what will become of us? You really need me to explain it? I'd rather not.

Oh, hush now. Don't cry. It's not as though the council of elders is coming for you, now is it? You're far too old.

From our family? Yes, dearest. Ever so long ago, before you were born, he- he was a beautiful boy.

Now, finish your supper and see to your chores. We all must be up early tomorrow, the day of sacrifice waits for no one, and we must all be present to thank the child who will save us for one more-

Your brother? How could I fight for him? If I had, the witch would have killed us all, and then where would we be? Sacrifice one, or sacrifice all. This is the way of the world. We couldn't change it if we tried.

Enough questions. Off with you, fool child."