For my writers seminar, my group and I presented Kristin Hannah author of the New York Times best selling novel, The Nightingale. This post includes the interview, two excerpts from Hannah’s writing, a personal emulation, and inspired emulation, how the novelist impacted me, and the presentation.
Interview:
Interviewer: Good afternoon, I would like to thank all of you for coming out today to watch me interview one of the most up and coming and popular authors of the 21rst century. And without further ado, I’d like to welcome Kristin Hannah!!
Kristin Hannah: Thank you for having me, I’m so honoured!
Interviewer: So let’s just dive into the interview, shall we?
Kristin Hannah: Gladly.
Interviewer: So how do you get inspired to write?
Kristin Hannah: I write regardless of inspiration, really. The best inspiration is to have something to write and something to say, which really means to live well and love well and read a lot and watch a lot of movies. And then to sit in front of the computer every day and get started.
Interviewer: Where do you usually buy your books? Do you have a favorite independent bookstore?
Kristin Hannah: I am a voracious reader. Like most of my kind, I have a huge to-be-read pile and my home has become a series of overflowing bookcases. I have met dozens of fabulous independent booksellers over the years. My favorite local bookstore is Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo, Washington. The owner, Suzanne Droppert, is a champion of authors and books
Interviewer: One of your most popular novel has been The Nightingale, so can you just tell us how you got the idea to write this piece?
Kristin Hannah: The Nightingale was inspired in part by the story of Andree de Jongh, an amazing nineteen year old Belgian woman who began the Comet line, as escape route through German occupied France during World War II. Also I believed that all too often, women’s war stories are forgotten or overshadowed. I wanted to write a novel that remembered their sacrifice and courage while vividly showing what it was like to live in Occupied France during the war. When reading it, I hope the reader asks: What would I do?
Interviewer: Was The Nightingale the first historical novel you have written? Did you take a different approach to writing this than you usually do?
Kristin Hannah: I wrote a novel a few years ago — Winter Garden — that was both historical and contemporary fiction. The novel was two parallel stories, one set in the ’90s in Washington State and one set in Russia during the terrible Siege of Leningrad during World War II. For me, the great draw of the historical novel is the lure of extraordinary circumstances. Ordinary women surviving and triumphing in extraordinary times. That’s what I’m looking for.
Interviewer: An interesting aspect of the book was its structure. What gave you the idea to break it up in the way that you did, both in terms of time and character?
Kristin Hannah: I originally intended this novel to be entirely historical. But when I sat down to write the first page, I found myself writing in the voice of an old, dying woman who was looking back on her life. Her voice compelled me, drew me in, and so I followed it. I knew that she was one of the strong women from the historical part of the novel — one of the survivors of the war, who carried great guilt and had suffered great loss — but I didn’t know who she was specifically. In fact, I did not know who she was until the end of the book, when I had to choose. This structure allowed the novel to move through time easily and focus on moments of great change.
Interviewer: “Sometimes when you open the door to your mother’s past, you find your own future.” You’ve said this line inspired the Winter Garden – how so?
Kristin Hannah: I am powerfully drawn to stories about women’s lives and relationships. I just can’t help it. I’m fascinated by the way we women interact, and how we lean on each other in hard times. Personally, I draw a great deal of strength from the women who are important in my life. So I wanted to write another novel based off of this ideal of mine. And like many writers, my fiction is drawn in large part from my own life.
Interviewer: What’s next for you in terms of your writing? Can you let eager readers in on what you’re currently working on?
Kristin Hannah: I am about 200 pages into the new novel, and honestly, I am not yet sure what it is going to be. My process is such that I never quite know what I am going to end up with. At the moment, it’s a story about a family that has survived a terrible tragedy and may or not be able to put the pieces back together. Stay tuned to see what it morphs into!
Interviewer: Lastly what advice do you have for young and thriving writers?
Kristin Hannah: You might want to read other answers in this thread. I urge you to read a lot, write every day that you can, join a critique group, join a writer’s group, attend classes, go to conferences, and keep believing in yourself. Half the battle is never giving up.
Interviewer: Thank you so much for spending your time with us and making answering my question.
Kristin Hannah: Thank you for having me!
Excerpts:
- The following excerpt is from The Nightingale:
A motherless girl.
“You will be the adult now,” her father had said to Vianne as they walked up to this very house for the first time. She’d been fourteen years old, her eyes swollen from crying, her grief unbearable. In an instant, this house had gone from being the family’s summer house to a prison of sorts. Maman had been dead less than two weeks when Papa gave up on being a father. Upon their arrival here, he’d not held her hand or rested a hand on her shoulder or even offered her a handkerchief to dry her tears.
“B-but I’m just a girl,” she’d said.
Not anymore.
She’d looked down at her younger sister, Isabelle, who still sucked her thumb at four and had no idea what was going on. Isabelle kept asking when Maman was coming home.
When the door opened, a tall, thin woman with a nose like a water spigot and eyes as small and dark as raisins appeared.
“These are the girls?” The woman had said.
Papa nodded.
“They will cause you no trouble.”
- The second excerpt is from Winter Garden:
Unaware of Nina, the woman paused at the riverbank and looked out over the scar on the land where the water should run. Her expression sharpened, turned desperate as she reached down to touch the child in her arms. It was a look Nina had seen in woman all over the world, especially in times of war and destruction. A bone-deep fear for her child’s future … Someday her portraits would show the world how strong and powerful women could be, as well as the personal cost of that strength…
She heard Danny come up beside her. “Hey, you.”
She leaned against him, feeling food about her shots. “I just love how they are with their kids, even when the odds are impossible. The only time I cry is when I see their faces with their babies. Why is that, with all we’ve seen?”
“So it’s mothers you follow. I thought it was warriors.”
Personal Emulation:
*This emulation was done on the excerpt of The Nightingale. I initially followed the format of the original text, but nearing the end of the piece, decided to have my own structure.*
A lifeless girl.
You will be filled with light soon, her father had said to her as cold, emotionless tears streamed down her inorganic cheeks. She’d been eighteen years old, her eyes submerged and sunken into her skull, her lips dry and left deserted of sweetness and lust.
Her cold presence that lacks resilience, assertiveness, and confidence was the very thing that fueled her piercing ambition.
Her desire to finally be the puppeteer. To be the one who controls the scenario and to finally be the one who hurts, not the one who gets hurt. She wanted to win because the very thought of losing brought a burden to her soul; a heavy weight that can never be lifted.
The feeling of attack and defeat punctured and destroyed her once angelic heart.
She now craves authority and a lack of mercy and remorse burns in her eyes.
She will now get revenge.
She will now taste the sweet fruit called vengeance.
Inspired Emulation:
*I did my inspired emulation on Khaled Hosseini’s excerpt from A Thousand Splendid Suns. And as mentioned above, I started off following the structure and later moved into my own formatting.*
I regretted so much in those final moments. But as he smirked and glanced at me with his venomous eyes, it was not hatred or remorse that I felt, but rather a bittersweet sensation of pleasant nostalgia. Although he independently concluded that his repetitive, torturous actions and faked apologies changed me, in actuality it didn’t. I let him do it over and over again because I was never affected by it. I guess I wanted him to stay because in our rare highs he made me feel loved and appreciated.
How the Novelist Impacted Me:
I was never really interested in historical fiction, however, upon doing this whole project and reading Kristin Hannah’s book: The Nightingale, I have grown a new found appreciation and curiosity for this genre of books. I found myself looking into this specific type of literature more and more, which was quite uncommon for me. The fact that you are able to not only follow an amazing plotline, but also, learn historical information and become aware of significant events intrigued me.
Secondly, I wasn’t a big fan of using imagery in my writing because I initially thought it was too difficult for me or that I wasn’t good enough to write it. Alas, upon reading her imagery saturated book, I picked up on a few tips and formats on how to effectively deliver clear and concise descriptions. I find it much, much easier now and this literature style is now a favourite of mine in not only short story writing, but also poetry.
It was quite inevitable that I would fall in love with Kristin Hannah’s writing, but I didn’t really think her impact would hold such significance to me. She has not only allowed my liking for different genres to massively increase in size, but she has also initiated positive growth and change in my writing.
Presentation:
Slide 1: Background for interview portion.
Slide 2: Introduction.
Slide 3: Kristin Hannah Biography.
- Born in September 1960.
- From Southern Carolina.
- Worked as a lawyer.
- After her mother’s passing, she was placed on bedrest due to pregnancy complications and ultimately wrote her first novel.
Slide 4: Awards & Recognition.
- 2004 Rita Awarded to Between Sisters.
- 2010 Reviewers Choice Award to Winter Garden.
- 2017 Publishers Weekly awarded to the novel, The Great Alone.
- 2016 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award to The Nightingale.
Slide 5: Writing Style.
- Third Person Narrative.
- Parallel Stories.
- Historical Fiction Genre.
- Extremely Detailed Synopsis.
- *Imagery:The flimsy stairs wobble beneath my feet as I climb into the attic, which smells of must and mold. A single, hanging lightbulb swings overhead. I pull the cord.It is like being in the hold of an old steamship. Wide wooden planks panel the walls; cobwebs turn the creases silver and hang in skeins from the indentations between the planks. The ceiling is so steeply pitched that I can stand upright only in the center of the room.”
Slide 6: Themes
- Female solidarity & strength
- War and Destruction
- Memory
- Loss of Innocence
- Relationship
- Responsibility
- Courage
Slide 7: Excerpt #1: The Nightingale.
A motherless girl.
You will be the adult now, her father had said to Vianne as they walked up to this very house for the first time. She’d been fourteen years old, her eyes swollen from crying, her grief unbearable. In an instant, this house had gone from being the family’s summer house to a prison of sorts. Maman had been dead less than two weeks when Papa gave up on being a father. Upon their arrival here, he’d not held her hand or rested a hand on her shoulder or even offered her a handkerchief to dry her tears.
B-but I’m just a girl, she’d said.
Not anymore.
She’d looked down at her younger sister, Isabelle, who still sucked her thumb at four and had no idea what was going on. Isabelle kept asking when Maman was coming home.
When the door opened, a tall, thin woman with a nose like a water spigot and eyes as small and dark as raisins appeared.
These are the girls?the woman had said.
Papa nodded.
They will cause you no trouble.
Slide 8: Excerpt #2: Winter Garden.
“Unaware of Nina, the woman paused at the riverbank and looked out over the scar on the land where the water should run. Her expression sharpened, turned desperate as she reached down to touch the child in her arms. It was a look Nina had seen in woman all over the world, especially in times of war and destruction. A bone-deep fear for her child’s future…Someday her portraits would show the world how strong and powerful women could be, as well as the personal cost of that strength…
She heard Danny come up beside her. “Hey, you.”
She leaned against him, feeling food about her shots. “I just love how they are with their kids, even when the odds are impossible. The only time I cry is when I see their faces with their babies. Why is that, with all we’ve seen?”
“So it’s mothers you follow. I thought it was warriors.”
Slide 7: Emulation Time!!
Slide 8: Bibliography.
- https://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm/author_number/2006/kristin-hannah
- https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiRxqvcruXXAhUK1oMKHVKYBhwQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffreshfiction.com%2Fauthor.php%3Fid%3D5130&psig=AOvVaw3Y6HdZbQcWP7A_ebr6Q-HU&ust=1512098895765035
- https://kristinhannah.com/books/the-nightingale/excerpt/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristin_Hannah
- https://www.fictiondb.com/author/kristin-hannah~book-awards~3223.htm
- http://www.bookweb.org/news/qa-kristin-hannah-author-february’s-1-indie-next-list-pickhttp://www.bookweb.org/news/qa-kristin-hannah-author-february’s-1-indie-next-list-pick
- https://www.goodreads.com/author/54493.Kristin_Hannah/questions