One of the most prominent literary celebrities to come out of the 1990s was Wicked author Gregory Maguire. Interestingly, Maguire wrote it so he didn’t feel like a “call boy.” Wicked had a tremendous impact on his life as a writer. It also changed pop culture in ways that we all still feel.

Gregory Maguire wrote ‘Wicked’ because he needed his own ‘sense of dignity’

No modern writer gets classic fairy tales quite like Maguire. He’s most famous for the Wizard of Oz reimagining Wicked, which became the basis for the Broadway musical of the same name and its movie adaptation. He also penned books based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (After Alice), “Snow White” (Mirror, Mirror), “Cinderella” (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister), and A Christmas Carol (Lost). While he’s a best-selling author now, Maguire was once in a difficult financial position. 

During a 2015 interview with Vice, Maguire discussed the origins of Wicked. “I was living in England with my then-boyfriend and the laws of my visa did not allow me to go out and work at a bookstore or a hamburger shop or anything,” he recalled. “So I didn’t have much money, and I didn’t like being supported like a call boy or something. I really needed to work for my own sense of dignity, and I needed to pay my own bills, etc.”

Why Gregory Maguire felt like he had to write the book when he turned 39

Maguire took a long time to bring his idea to fruition. “I had had the idea for Wicked a couple of years earlier, but I hadn’t really thought I was old enough to write it,” he said. “Then I turned 39. 

“The day I turned 39, I was one day older than my mother had ever been [when she died young],” he added. “I thought, ‘If I’m now older than my mother who died at 38, then I must be a grown-up, I must be able to do grown-up work. I’m gonna put aside writing stories for children and write a story for adults, even if it looks on the outside like a children’s story.’”

The real legacy of ‘Wicked’ extends far beyond Broadway

Maguire thought that, perhaps, Wicked would gain a cult following among nerds going to college. He hoped the book would pay his rent and grant him “a little personal dignity.” However, he didn’t think that Wicked would become part of popular culture, make him famous, or give him enough notoriety to continue writing for decades.

While Wicked inspired a hit musical and a hit movie, its real impact is more profound than that. After the book came out, it’s been common for popular culture to portray famous villains in a more flattering light. Since Wicked hit bookshelves in 1995, we’ve had sympathetic reimaginings of Darth Vader (the Star Wars prequels), Michael Myers (Rob Zombie’s two Halloween movies), and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty (Maleficent and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil). In fact, most villains in live-action Disney remakes tend to be a little nicer than they were the first time around. That might not have happened without the success of Wicked.

Wicked became one of the most influential books of the 1990s — and it helped Maguire feel like less of a call boy.