Interview with Hannah Moskowitz

Yesterday was our 5-Minute Book Club and we featured Break by Hannah Moskowitz. To follow it up, Hannah has given us a great interview. She was so amazing and super-fast replying. Thanks, Hannah!!

We all loved your book and were entranced by the voice. How did you nail the voice?

Thank you so much! I wish I had a better answer for this, but it wasn’t a conscious thing. The first few pages that you see of BREAK are basically the same first pages form the very first draft. Those I just wrote, letting them happen, and I tried to get the rest of the book to match that same vibe. I love voice in novels, but I never have any good advice on how to write it. It’s just having fun with it, I think.

Now that BREAK has been out a while, do you feel that it has changed you and how?

It’s definitely connected me to some fantastic people. And it’s been AMAZING watching the buzz for BREAK grow, absolutely amazing. I keep waiting for the crash, or for BREAK to slowly fade into nothingness, but its popularity has actually been building everyday, which is…astounding to watch. It’s amazing what word of mouth can do, and I’m so incredibly grateful for what my readers have managed to do for this book. I sound like such a goddamn suck-up right now, but I’m so serious.

We see that you have INVINCIBLE SUMMER coming out next year. Can you share some of it?

Heehee, I have excerpts on my blog at http://hannahmosk.blogspot.com you can absolutely check out. I’m so exciting for INVINCIBLE SUMMER. It’s going to be awesome.

Do you think YA is getting too edgy? Are there any taboo subjects? Should it be toned down?

Oh, hell no, it can’t get too edgy for me. But I think it’s important that we keep building this huge amount of breadth we have going for us in YA. We don’t want to be edgy for the sake of being edgy, you know? There’s room for everything, and there should be. It’s one of the best things YA has going for it as a classification. We hold so many different genres.

I can’t think of any taboo subjects.

Have you ever tried writing from female perspective and if so, how did it go?

I’ve started a few things from female POVs, and they never went well. I have a novel finished that I co-wrote with a friend, in which he wrote the POV of a boy, and I wrote a girl. That was much easier than writing a whole book from a female’s POV. So with that under my belt, I wrote another novel from 4 POVs, two of which are female.

What else do you have in the works?

I have a few YA manuscripts sitting around, wonder what’s going to happen with them, and an MG in the works right now. I have an adult book that’s out with editors right now. We’ll see how everything happens!

What’s it like to be a published, teenage writer in college?

Busy. Nobody knows about the writing thing at college, so there I’m just hannah, which is honestly a nice break. But it is frustrating when I have edits due the same Monday as a big paper, and I just want someone at school to cut me a break. I end up getting all my shit done, but sometimes it’s a scramble. I don’t like college much–I’m never shy about saying it–so a lot of times I just wish I were old enough to be out of here.

Now we have to get personal, at least I want to satisfy my own curiosity. We’ll blame Twitter . I think it’s awesome you are making an inter-faith relationship work. Your shiksa. I still smile every time I think of him being a shiksa. I guess I should explain for our readers. A shiksa is a female non-Jew. A male non-Jew is a shaygetz. Does he mind that you refer to him in this way? And how did Shiksa come about for him?

I love this question so much. Yeah, I call him shiksa all the time, both to his face and on the internet. On twitter, it just made sense–its easier than everyone going “Who’s Chris?” every time I mention him–and I think it’s cute and funny. I call him shiksa instead of shaygetz for a few reasons. It’s a more familiar term; he knew it before I started calling him that, and gentiles in general have an easier time recognizing it. Also, Chris refers to me as his boyfriend sometimes, so it’s really only fair that he gets to be the shiksa. We just like to confuse people.

Favorites:

Ice cream: French Vanilla

Color: Indigo

Jewish holiday: Rosh Hashanah

Final question, What do you drive?

Eee, I did drive a 2005 Cooper Mini, but I totaled it a few weeks ago. Now I have a 2009 Honda Fit, and I love it to death.

Thanks so very much for doing this. We appreciate it lots and lots.

Comments, questions, thoughts, oh lovely readers?? Also, yesterday we announced the chance to win Break would be announced in the future and it will, as soon as our super sekrit project is finished

Original Interview published on Old People Writing for Teens. To view original post and reader comments, please click here.