The Story So Far
At a graduate student party in a Hyde Park apartment on Chicago's south side in the early 1960s, John Bellairs first told his friends the story about his miraculous discovery of Saint Fidgeta, the patroness of nervous and unmanageable children. Partly inspired by his Catholic upbringing as well as his teaching at a girl's Catholic school, the character first appeared in the June/July 1965 edition of the Catholic publication, the Critic. The following year, the article became the first of twelve chapters in his debut book.