Author Interview- Hannah Moskowitz

We are so lucky to get this interview! And like promised, here is Hannah!

Here’s our first author interview. And we have the wonderful and awesomely haired Hannah Moskowitz, author of BREAK and INVINCIBLE SUMMER, and many, many more to come! You can find her bouncing around on twitter and follow her blog Invincible Summer and just see how awesome this nineteen year old author is.
So welcome Hannah to the You Know What They Say About Book People blog, and it’s twice now that you get to christen our blog, first with the very first review and now with the very first interview here, so thanks so much!
(Becca...the papers upside down...I can’t read your writing upside down, turn it over! I need the questions...thanks.)

Q:       Are you really only 19? Your writing style makes you seem older.
A:Yep, really and truly nineteen. Almost nineteen and a half, though.

Q:       Why write a story about a boy on a mission to break all of his bones? It’s a very original idea for sure, that you don’t generally find every day, or maybe its just the books we read that we don’t read every day 
 A:Thanks! So I had the idea in my head that I wanted to write a book about a boy on some kind of strange mission. I considered a lot of possibilities but none of them really stuck. As soon as I thought of a mission to break all his bones, I knew I was going to have to write that one, and I finished the first draft in six days.
So I wasn't intending to write a self-injury book, and I still don't think of it as your typical self-injury book, but I am very aware that that's the issue at play, and I hope I did it justice. Once I knew that was what I was tackling, I wanted to approach it in a fresh and honest way.

Q:   And here comes a truly hard one, think you can handle it? :P What is....Your favourite animal?
       A: I am CRAZY about wolves.

Q:    The last chapter of Break seemed different from the rest of the novel, why is this?
          A: Hmmm, I don't know. Jonah's a little feverish at the time, so it might be that his voice is a little spacier than it usually is. He gets romantic when he's sick.

Q:  Okay, and here’s one very random question from Becca who just wants to feel better because she plays RuneScape. Do you Hannah play Runescape?
   A: I have actually never heard of RuneScape. But I googled it and it totally looks like my thing. But to be honest I spend most of my game time on Pokemon...judge all you like.

Q:    What are some of the ups and downs for your writing career? Was it the agents from your recent blog posts it seems like that would be a very hard thing to overcome, I guess thats the word for it.
     A:  The agent drama has definitely been hard, but everything is so settled and comfortable now. In a way, I think the downs really are those quiet parts, when you're waiting for something to happen and it feels like everyone else in the universe has a book coming out. That gets frustrating.
The ups are getting reviews. Even the bad ones. The idea that someone read your book and wants to write something about it...I still can't get over that. I adore reviews. I read all of them. (And it hasn't made me arrogant or overcome with self-doubt, so I say screw the advice, go ahead and read them if you can take it. I've learned from the bad ones, actually.)

Q:  It looks amazing but why do you like big hair? (I LOVE YOUR HAIR BY THE WAY—Ash).
       A: Big hair hides my big brain. No, I have no idea. It's kind of a throwback. But thank you! I'm cutting it off next week...but keeping it big, don't worry.

Q: Do you outline your novels extensively? Plan out the background for character relationships, the houses, everything in detail? (Like Ash...).
      A: It really depends on the book, and my process has changed as I've written more books. Back when I wrote BREAK, I outlined very, very little. Now, I do more, but they're still very basic skeletal outlines, so I'm not plotting out every detail at all. What I usually end up doing is diving in with no outline and getting lost somewhere in the middle and frantically writing down everything else that needs to happen. That works well for me.

Q:      What’s your favourite writing quote?
          A: As much as I don't feel his writing, I love the quote “You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club" from Jack London. I always beat myself over the head trying to come with an idea when I'm in a rut, and people always tell me to relax and let it come to me, but...that's not how I roll, I guess! INVINCIBLE SUMMER came from me just going "I'm going to get an idea, damn it," and listening to the album Narrow Stairs by Death Cab for Cutie over and over and over again. 


Q:   And the very last one! We promise! Can you tell us a little bit about Invincible Summer for those who are counting down the days until this is released?
       A: :) I'm counting up the days too! INVINCIBLE SUMMER is about a boy named Chase and his four siblings told over the course of 4 consecutive summers. There's a lot of stuff going on--his sister is kind of a baby slut, his deaf little brother doesn't want to learn sign language, his older brother keeps running away...and then he and said brother start sleeping with the same girl. It's really about how everything changes--and more importantly, what doesn't change--when Chase grows from 14 to 17. Very family-focused, even more so than BREAK.


Thanks Hannah for the interview, and I hope we can get you back on the blog again!

-Ash