Oct. 11, 2024: Are you Wicked? Author Gregory Maguire takes us on a magical journey to the land of Oz

Monday Morning Magic from Inkandescent® PR + Publishing Co. — When the film based on Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked” hits the big screen this month on Nov. 22, fans have the chance to revisit the story behind the international bestseller that reimagines L. Frank Baum’s treasured tale, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

“It certainly has been a wild ride on a broom I didn’t realize I was hauling when I set out almost 50 years ago,” admits Maguire, the beloved fantasy writer who also redrew Wonderland in After Alice, introduced us to a distant relation of Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge in Lost and took us to Hiddensee to explore the Nutcracker’s back-story.

Maguire says the origin of his imagination harkens back to his childhood in Albany, NY, when he played theatrical games based on the Wizard of Oz with his six siblings in the backyard. “I was the boss kid and would gather my little squadron and decide what we were doing that day,” shares Maguire, who shocked some when he used cross-gender casting and introduced characters like Captain Hook to Oz.

Gregory Maguire, author, “Wicked”

Thirty years later, he was living in London when a tragic murder occurred. “Two boys killed a classmate, and there was a loud conversation about how they could wake up in the morning, get dressed for school, and become murderers by the end of the day. I started asking myself, what are the roots of evil?”

Soon after, he was on a walk around Beatrix Potter’s farm and had an epiphany. “I thought, everybody knows who the Wicked Witch of the West is. Nobody knows how she got that way.” Then he remembered a scene in the 1939 film when Margaret Hamilton was whirling around, pointing to Billy Burke and saying, “I might have known you’d be behind this, Glinda.”

Maguire admits he doesn’t know if that line is actually in the movie, but he realized, “These ladies recognize each other and have a history. I fell off my ankles laughing on the grass because I thought, of course, they went to school together and had to be roommates. That’s the moment where all this began.”

Note: The release of Wicked: Part Two is set for Nov. 26, 2025.

This article originally appeared in Costco’s magazine, the Connection. Read it here.

Until next Monday: May your imagination and compassion land you in the Oz of your dreams. — Hope Katz Gibbs, founder and president, Inkandescent® Inc. Inkandescent.us

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