About Stephanie
Stephanie Alexander writes enchanting, fantastical book club friendly stories for thoughtful, modern women. She is the author of eight (8) published novels, including Charleston-based Mean Low Water (Red Adept Publishing 2024) and Tipsy Collins Series (Charleston Green, Haint Blue, Palmetto Rose, and True Indigo), as well as The Cracked Slipper Series (The Cracked Slipper, The Dragon Choker, and The Glass Rainbow), a fractured fairy tale retelling. Stephanie’s work always features strong female protagonists, relatable emotional journeys, and a dash of magic. 250,000 copies of her books have been downloaded to e-readers and audiobook libraries, or sit on old-fashioned bookshelves.
Stephanie grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Drawing, writing stories, and harassing her parents for a pony consumed much of her childhood. After graduating from high school in 1995 she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the College of Charleston, South Carolina. She returned to Washington, DC, where she followed a long-time fascination with sociopolitical structures and women’s issues to a Master of Arts in Sociology from the American University. She spent several years as a Policy Associate at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), a think-tank focused on women’s health and economic advancement.
Stephanie embraced full-time motherhood after the birth of the first of her three children in 2003. Her family put down permanent southern roots in Charleston in 2011, and she returned to the workforce as an Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the College of Charleston. Beginning in the Fall of 2015, as a single working mother, she attended law school on a full academic scholarship, earning her juris doctor with honors from the Charleston School of Law in December 2017.
She currently practices family law in Charleston. She has appeared on local and national media and regularly joins with book clubs for discussions of her work. Her personal experience rebuilding her life after divorce inspires both her legal work and her fiction. Stephanie and her husband live in the Charleston area with their blended family of five children and their three miniature dachshunds, Trinket, Tipsy, and Ophelia.
a note from Stephanie
Dear Reader,
One of the first books I truly adored, Watership Down, captured my imagination when I was probably seven years old. Of course, at that age, the symbolism and deeper meaning of that brilliant story were beyond me, but I remember falling deeply in love with Hazel and his friends. The intricate world they inhabited seemed perfectly reasonable yet wholly imaginary. As I continued to read ravenously and transitioned into adult novels, my favorite books usually followed some variation on that theme. The characters felt like my own dear friends. I related to their internal struggles. The worlds they lived in, however, were either magically or historically foreign to me, yet intricately and viscerally alive.
Of the thousands of books I’ve read in my life, some stand out to me: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Demon Copperhead, Wuthering Heights, Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Clair Robson, Weyward, Pride and Prejudice (and other Jane Austen novels), myriad Stephen King novels (IT, The Stand, and The Dark Tower Series being my personal favorites), Shutter Island, His Dark Materials, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Never Let Me Go, Atonement, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, The Handmaid’s Tale, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and my favorite book of all time, Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. I’m currently writing a novel inspired by my favorite short story, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s gothic masterpiece The Yellow Wallpaper.
These books may seem to run the gamut of the literary experience, but there is a common thread: 1) deeply relatable characters; and 2) rich settings, either speculative or historical. I’m not saying that I don’t like a good plot. All stories need a story, after all, but the events of these tales are not what led me to read them over and over (and over and over and over). I want to learn something about myself through the character’s experiences, but I want to escape.
By the time I reached my early thirties, I found myself often returning to my old favorites, because I rarely found new books that really sparked my passion. I craved stories with a bit of everything. I wanted intensely creative speculative elements and worldbuilding (a la Harry’s Wizarding World, or Stephen King’s Derry, Maine) and strong, relatable, timeless female characters (like Lizzie Bennett and the Ya-Yas).
One evening, I was driving my two young daughters back home after ballet, and they were listening to the Cinderella story on some kids’ radio station. As the narrator ended with happily ever after, I thought, “Sure, she probably died in childbirth.”
With that one thought, the idea for The Cracked Slipper Series quickly took shape in my mind. A familiar fairytale, set in a fabulously magical and romantic kingdom full of witches, unicorns, and dragons, but centered on a heroine who faces the challenges women universally tackle: relationships, parenting, bad decisions, insecurities, childhood trauma, and family drama.
My subsequent books, including the four novels of the Tipsy Collins Series and my latest novel, Mean Low Water, are in many ways departures from The Cracked Slipper Series. Unlike Princess Eleanor, Tipsy Collins inhabits our world, albeit the wonderfully unique microcosm of American life that is Charleston, South Carolina. Tipsy’s challenges are those of everywoman, but Tipsy also has to contend with ghosts complicating her already messy life. LeeLee Moretz of Mean Low Water also inhabits our world, but her supernatural challenges come from her own mind: the ability to see into the past and future, and even overhear intimate thoughts. Her personal life if just as complicated as Tipsy’s and Eleanor’s, and that’s where she becomes relatable, despite her fantastic powers.
After reading Tipsy’s story, some have asked me: “Do you see ghosts?” After reading LeeLee’s story, I’ve gotten similar questions: “Can you predict the future? Can you read minds?”
No, I don’t see ghosts. I can’t see into my own personal crystal ball. But it thrills me that Tipsy’s and LeeLee’s experience’s are compelling enough that someone might wonder if I have such powers.
I promise you this, dear reader, if you come on this storytelling voyage with me, I’ll always try to offer you a vivid, meaningful, relatable escape, with a magical twist.
Best,
– Stephanie Alexander