AUTHOR CRUSH FRIDAY: ELLEN HOPKINS
Glitter girls, you have pressing questions for your favorite authors and we have their answers. Welcome to our new weekly segment, Author Crush Fridays.
We love asking questions and we love the answers from some of our favorite authors. Today we’re talking to Ellen Hopkins, NY Times bestselling author of Rumble (August 26, 2014; Margaret K. McElderry Books). Thank you for talking to us today, Ellen! We’re truly honored!
GLITTER: When did you first get started with writing?
ELLEN: I’ve been writing ever since I learned how to put words on paper… it’s always been something I enjoyed. If you mean professionally, I started as a freelance writer for an amazing alternative press in 1989, and worked as a freelance journalist for a number of years before focusing on fiction.
GLITTER: Is being an author something you always wanted to be?
ELLEN: Absolutely, or at least a writer of some kind. It’s been my heart for decades.
GLITTER: How long did it take you to write your first book?
ELLEN: My first book was a children’s nonfiction book. I wrote twenty before moving into fiction, and wrote, like, ten in a year. My first novel took a year to write, as I was still writing as a journalist, as well as a nonfiction author.
GLITTER: Who are some of your favorite authors?
ELLEN: Currently, A.S. King, Jandy Nelson, Andrew Smith and Corey Whaley on the YA side. Historically, Stephen King, Ken Kesey and John Irving.
GLITTER: You’ve written many books throughout your career. Which would you say is your favorite one?
ELLEN: I really love my current newest, RUMBLE. It covers topics important to me on a number of levels, plus the main character, Matt, has an amazing voice. I hope everyone reads and loves it.
GLITTER: Why do you write your books in verse? Do you think a different voice comes out when you’re writing in verse?
ELLEN: Verse thoroughly allows readers inside my characters’ heads. It allows you to live the story, experience what the characters are experiencing. Extraneous language reminds you you’re being told a story, rather than living it. Plus, I love the challenge of making every word count.
GLITTER: Do you take real-life experiences to write your novels? Do you think it helps to have experienced what you have written or know someone who has experienced it?
ELLEN: I absolutely believe to write about a certain life experience you need to at the very least talk to several people (primary research) who have gone through that experience, or it will ring false on the page.
GLITTER: Congratulations on Rumble being a Semi-Finalist in the Best Young Adult Fiction of 2014 category, which is part of the Goodreads Choice Awards 2014. For those who haven’t read it yet, what can you tell our readers about your most recent release, Rumble?
ELLEN: RUMBLE is about a guy who has lost his little brother to suicide (Luke was bullied into suicide because he was gay). Matt carries a lot of guilt because he might have stopped his brother, but chose to stay with his girlfriend instead. So, how do you find the forgiveness you need when the person you need it from is gone?
GLITTER: Some of your books have been banned or censored. How does that make you feel? Is there any way to stop them from banning amazing books like yours?
ELLEN: Book banning angers me because no one person or group of people should have the right to decide for everyone else what they can or can’t read. My books might be too mature for some readers, but for those who need them, they’re absolutely necessary. If I find out about a challenge, I send the librarian or teacher a file of reader letters, telling me why my books were important to them. Often that halts the challenge.
GLITTER: Aside from books, you also write poetry. Where do you find the inspiration to write your poems?
ELLEN: Everywhere! Life experiences. Landscape. People. Stories I read.
GLITTER: What advice can you share with those who want to write as well?
ELLEN: To write from the heart, and write courageously. Write the stories you can’t NOT write and don’t be afraid to write real. PLUS character is everything. Be a voyeur. Study people. Learn what makes them tick, then give those qualities to your characters.
Photo Credit: Sonya Sones
Ellen Hopkins came to writing young adult fiction via a circuitous route. She studied journalism at UCSB, but dropped out of school to marry Mr. Wrong, start a family and delve into entrepreneurship, owning two small businesses that lasted marginally longer than her first marriage. The small income she received from selling her video store, however, allowed her the ability to explore writing as a career when she and her new husband, John, moved to Lake Tahoe to begin life together.
Hopkins drew on her journalism background to become a freelance writer, publishing hundreds of articles ranging from restaurant reviews to environmental exposes. Her research for a few of these inspired twenty nonfiction books for children, all published between the years 2000-2005. Meanwhile, she fed her more creative side, writing poetry and experimenting with short works of fiction.
Eventually, a quite personal story of family addiction led her to YA, with her first novel, Crank. Hopkins chose to write the 2004 book in verse because, she says, it allowed her more deeply inside her protagonist’s head and heart, and also because of the visual interest of the more unusual word placement. She discovered a talent for the form, and a desire to write for teens, who have become passionate about her straightforward storytelling and well-drawn characters.
Crank and the nine young adult novels that have followed have all reached coveted top ten spots on the New York Times Bestseller List. Hopkins has also taken the plunge into adult fiction with Triangles and Collateral, and she is currently writing Tangled, her third novel for adults, to publish Spring 2015. Her books have won numerous awards, and she was honored with the Nevada Governor’s Arts Award in 2010.
Hopkins has recently founded Ventana Sierra, a nonprofit whose mission is to help youth-in-need into safe housing and working toward career goals through higher education, vocational training, mentorship and the arts. She says this is her way of paying success forward.
Learn more about Ellen Hopkins at: http://ellenhopkins.com/; https://www.facebook.com/ellenhopkinsya; and www.twitter.com/ellenhopkinsYA.
Learn more about Ventana Sierra at: www.ventanasierra.org
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