Born Blue (24 page)

Q:
What is your writing process? Do you work certain hours or days?

HN:
I use a computer to write, and I try to write from about five or six o'clock in the morning until about four o'clock in the afternoon. When my children were living
at home, I wrote during the hours they were at school and stopped when they came home.

Q:
Are your characters inspired by people you know?

HN:
I guess they would have to be in some way—but not really. I never sit down to write and think I'm going to write a story based on this person I know. The characters evolve as I'm writing and they act and react to the situations I've created. I never know who I'm going to meet when I write.

Q:
How do you come up with story ideas?

HN:
I write about things I care about—those things closest to my heart or things that scare me the most. My ideas come from inside me, but they are stimulated by conversations I've had, things I've read, and stories I've heard.

Q:
Do personal experiences or details ever end up in your books?

HN:
Yes. All the interiors of the houses in my stories come from houses I've been in before. They never come out just the way they are in real life, but in my mind's eye I am picturing a certain familiar house. Casper, Alabama, in the book
Send Me Down a Miracle,
was based on a
street in Dothan, Alabama, where many of my relatives have lived. The street is named after my great-uncle. I created a small town based on that one street.

Q:
Your characters often face a life without one or both parents. What do you hope readers will take away from your exploration of this situation?

HN:
Every reader comes to a book with their own history and will respond to the book according to that history. I would want my readers to take away from this exploration whatever they need. I don't create a story to teach a certain lesson to my readers. I create a story to explore a certain truth about life.

Q:
How did you come up with the idea for
Born Blue?

HN:
This is one of those
amazing
stories that just came to me full-blown. Leshaya just arrived [in my head] one day while I was sitting at my computer, and I knew everything about her. I knew her story; I knew exactly what she would think, do, and say.

Q:
What role does music play in your life? How is this reflected in your characters or plot?

HN:
Music has always played an important role in my life. My mother is a pianist, so music was always in our
house. I learned about classical music from her. My father likes jazz and the big bands so I learned those things from him. Now I listen to a mix of music—classical, folk, blues, jazz, rock. I used to be a dancer, and music, of course, is an important element in the choreography of a piece. I also sang in chorus and then choir for much of my life. In most of my books, music is there. In
Born Blue,
music has a leading role. But it is in
If I Should Die Before I Wake
with the violin music, and
A Face in Every Window
with the cello, and
Dancing on the Edge
with both singing and dancing. I like that I have characters in my stories who are excited by music because I am, too.

Q:
Do you imagine Leshaya realizing her dream of becoming a famous singer?

HN:
I'll let my readers imagine that for now. People have written to me asking me if I'll write a sequel and tell what happens to Leshaya, but I like it that everyone has their own idea of how her story ends.

Q:
What were your dreams as a little girl? Was being a writer one of them?

HN:
I did dream of being a writer, but I never thought I would become one because I didn't know how to do it. I didn't understand the process. However, I once rode in a car past the McDowell Colony in Peterborough,
New Hampshire, and when I asked someone about it, she said that it was a place where writers go—they each have their own little hut and someone sets a basket of lunch outside their door every day. Well, I thought that was the coolest thing. I thought that I would love to be a writer and sit in a little hut writing my stories.

Also by Han Nolan

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER
Dancing on the Edge

A girl teeters on the edge of insanity.

Miracle McCloy has always known that there is something different about her. Gigi, her clairvoyant grandmother, won't let her forget that she had been pulled from the womb of a dead woman—a "miracle" birth—and that she expects Miracle to be a prodigy, much like Dane, the girl's brooding novelist father.

Having been raised according to a set of mystical rules and beliefs, Miracle is unable to cope in the real world. Lost in a desperate dance among lit candles, Miracle sets herself afire and is hospitalized. There, she undertakes a painful struggle to take charge of her life.

An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A
Booklist
Editors' Choice
A
School Library Journal
Best Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

*"Masterful."
—School Library Journal
(starred review)

*Intense, exceptionally well-written."
—Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

*"Compelling."
—Booklist
(starred review)

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

Send Me Down a Miracle

Visions from heaven make all hell break loose.

Things used to be normal in Casper, Alabama. Charity Pittman was a regular fourteen-year-old, the perfect daughter, destined to follow in her preacher father's footsteps. But then Adrienne arrived, with her big-city ways and artsy ideas. Reverend Pittman thinks she's the devil incarnate. Charity thinks she's amazing.

But no one knows what to think of Adrienne when she claims she's seen Jesus.

Adrienne's vision splits the God-fearing community between believers and nonbelievers, and Charity is stuck in the middle, questioning her father, her religion—and herself.

This small town is praying for a miracle, but heading for disaster.

A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age
A
Parents' Choice
Award Winner
A YALSA Popular Paperback for Young Adults

*"Hilarious."
—Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

*"Thought-provoking."
—School Library Journal
(starred
review)

*"The plot is intricate, sharp, and invigorating."
—Booklist
(starred review)

A Face in Every Window

Life spins out of control in an instant.

JP's once safe and secure world quickly unravels with the death of his beloved grandmother. Grandma Mary had always been the guiding hand of the O'Brien family, lovingly raising his mentally challenged Pap and allowing Mam to remain free of adult responsibility.

Without Grandma Mary, nothing goes smoothly. Things only get worse when Mam wins a farmhouse in an essay contest and insists on sharing her good fortune with the neighborhood outcasts. As JP sees both Pap and himself being replaced in mother's life, his anger takes over.

National Book Award-winning author Han Nolan skillfully draws readers into JP's life and challenges them to experience both his loneliness and his strength as he struggles to learn what it means to forgive.

A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

*"Uplifting, intriguing, and memorable."
—Booklist
(starred review)

*"Poignant ... An emotional roller-coaster."
—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

*"Satisfying."
—School Library Journal
(starred review)

If I Should Die Before I Wake

Beware of what you see behind closed eyes.

Hilary hates Jews.

As part of a neo-Nazi gang in her town, she's finally found a sense of belonging. But when she's critically injured in an accident, everything changes.

Lying near death in a Jewish hospital, Hilary finds herself bombarded by memories of a life in Poland. A life
she
never lived. Somehow, Hilary has become Chana, a Jewish girl fighting for her own life in World War II.

Forced from their home by the Nazis, Chana and her family struggle in the terrible Lodz ghetto, where starvation drives people to desperate acts and the streets are smeared with filth. Those strong enough to survive are shipped out—to the slaughterhouse at Auschwitz.

How can Chana—or Hilary—survive?

A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age
A YALSA Popular Paperback for Young Adults
An Iowa Teen Award Winner

*"Bold ... deeply felt and often compelling."
—Kirkus Reviews

*"Page-turning ... An interesting and moving story."
—VOYA

*"Brilliandy rendered."
—Booklist