Tales of Ethshar

About “Portrait of A Hero”

Lester del Rey, my editor at the time, had discovered an artist whose work he really liked, by the name of Michael Pangrazio. He wanted to do a project to showcase the guy’s work, so he got together with his assistant Risa Kessler (at least, I think she was his assistant; I never dealt with her directly) and put together an anthology called Once Upon A Time, which would feature “modern fairy tales” by all Del Rey’s top fantasy authors. Each story would be illustrated with a painting by Michael Pangrazio. I was very flattered to be included in this, but wasn’t sure about writing a “modern fairy tale.” On the other hand, one of my sisters had asked me to write a story with a prophecy in it, so I had started one that I had originally intended to be a novel, but once I started working on it I realized it didn’t have enough plot for a novel. I abandoned it unfinished.

When Once Upon A Time came along I finished the prophecy story, cut it down even more, and sent it to Lester, who bought it. My sister got her prophecy novel a few years later, in the form of Taking Flight.