| Interview with Hillary Frank |
First off, thanks so much for joining us for an up-close and personal interview for TeensReadToo.
com! My name is Jen, and I’ll be your server toda…oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for
taking time out of your writing schedule—which I’m sure is busy!—and answering a few questions for
your readers and fans.
Let’s get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you
wanted to be a writer?
I am not one of those people who always wanted to be a writer. I grew up convinced that I’d be some
kind of artist—an illustrator or graphic designer. I think the first time I started thinking seriously about
writing was during a creative writing class my freshman year in college. I’d written this really
melodramatic story about a girl who doesn’t have any friends and goes and hangs herself from a tree
in a graveyard. My teacher shook his head in disappointment when he handed the story back to me. “I
thought you were going to be so good,” he said, “and this just stinks.” From then on I wanted
desperately to prove that I could be as good as he’d hoped I would be.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
My senior year in college I was in a creative writing class and everyone’s eyes used to glaze over
whenever anyone read a story aloud. I was determined to keep my peers’ interest, so I divided my
story up into short, easily digestible segments. I gave each vignette a title and topped each title with a
black and white spot illustration. I even considered stapling bags of candy to each copy for when I
handed the story out in class. Anyway, my efforts worked. It was the first time any of my classmates
had asked to hang on to my story after class was over. After I graduated, I sent that story to an editor
at Houghton Mifflin, at the recommendation of a teacher. That editor sent me a letter with all sorts of
questions about the characters and the plot and she said that if I could expand the story to a novel,
she’d like to talk to me again. I started tackling answers to her questions and eventually, the story
became my first novel, Better Than Running at Night.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one
thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
I Can’t Tell You is about whether or not it’s possible to be “just friends” with someone you’ve got the
hots for. You know you’ve been there.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
Richard Brautigan. I love his writing for its strangeness and purposeful details. Whenever I’m stuck, I
try to think of what he’d do to spice things up.
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
My mom is a painter, calligrapher, and an art teacher at a Montessori school. My dad is a
photographer. My brother is a trumpeter.
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
Mac n’ cheese. There’s this place in Chicago called Handlebar that makes theirs with smoked gouda.
Can’t beat it.
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Hit the snooze button, fall back asleep, hit snooze again.
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would
surprise me the most?
That hot pink, sparkly dress I bought for $5 when my friend threw a “Thrift Store Prom” this summer.
Everyone asks the question about “if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?” so I want to
know: If you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
Sepia. So I could look like an old photograph.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
Favorite: Peppy Le Peu. Most like me: Woody Woodpecker.
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world (“Beam me up, Scotty!”), during any time in
history, where and when would it be—and why?
Yesterday. So I could edit the things I said that came out all wrong.
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while
you’re writing?
As a teenager I was obsessed with Thelonious Monk. Lately I’ve been into Motown. And catchy pop
music. I don’t usually listen to music while I’m writing, but sometimes I’ll throw on the Dead Man
soundtrack and listen to tracks 3 and 11 over and over again.
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last
movie you saw at the theater?
Ooh, I have lots of favorite TV shows. Most aren’t on the air anymore. Twin Peaks, Freaks and Geeks,
Arrested Development, The Office (BBC version). I can’t wait for season 5 of The Wire. I love the
movies You Can Count on Me and Shortcuts. I’ve seen Amadeus more times than I can count, but I’ve
never rented it and never meant to see it so much. Last movie I saw in a theater: Superbad.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Revise, revise, revise. That is, if you want to write. Don’t get defensive if someone you trust critiques
your work. They might just give you that little nudge that makes your story really shine.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
My next book, Normal, ME, will be published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin, in Summer 2010. That’s
a long time to wait, but in the meantime, you can hear me on the radio. I post all my new radio stories
on my Web site, http://hillaryfrank.com.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
com! My name is Jen, and I’ll be your server toda…oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for
taking time out of your writing schedule—which I’m sure is busy!—and answering a few questions for
your readers and fans.
Let’s get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you
wanted to be a writer?
I am not one of those people who always wanted to be a writer. I grew up convinced that I’d be some
kind of artist—an illustrator or graphic designer. I think the first time I started thinking seriously about
writing was during a creative writing class my freshman year in college. I’d written this really
melodramatic story about a girl who doesn’t have any friends and goes and hangs herself from a tree
in a graveyard. My teacher shook his head in disappointment when he handed the story back to me. “I
thought you were going to be so good,” he said, “and this just stinks.” From then on I wanted
desperately to prove that I could be as good as he’d hoped I would be.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
My senior year in college I was in a creative writing class and everyone’s eyes used to glaze over
whenever anyone read a story aloud. I was determined to keep my peers’ interest, so I divided my
story up into short, easily digestible segments. I gave each vignette a title and topped each title with a
black and white spot illustration. I even considered stapling bags of candy to each copy for when I
handed the story out in class. Anyway, my efforts worked. It was the first time any of my classmates
had asked to hang on to my story after class was over. After I graduated, I sent that story to an editor
at Houghton Mifflin, at the recommendation of a teacher. That editor sent me a letter with all sorts of
questions about the characters and the plot and she said that if I could expand the story to a novel,
she’d like to talk to me again. I started tackling answers to her questions and eventually, the story
became my first novel, Better Than Running at Night.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one
thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
I Can’t Tell You is about whether or not it’s possible to be “just friends” with someone you’ve got the
hots for. You know you’ve been there.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
Richard Brautigan. I love his writing for its strangeness and purposeful details. Whenever I’m stuck, I
try to think of what he’d do to spice things up.
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
My mom is a painter, calligrapher, and an art teacher at a Montessori school. My dad is a
photographer. My brother is a trumpeter.
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
Mac n’ cheese. There’s this place in Chicago called Handlebar that makes theirs with smoked gouda.
Can’t beat it.
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Hit the snooze button, fall back asleep, hit snooze again.
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would
surprise me the most?
That hot pink, sparkly dress I bought for $5 when my friend threw a “Thrift Store Prom” this summer.
Everyone asks the question about “if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?” so I want to
know: If you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
Sepia. So I could look like an old photograph.
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
Favorite: Peppy Le Peu. Most like me: Woody Woodpecker.
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world (“Beam me up, Scotty!”), during any time in
history, where and when would it be—and why?
Yesterday. So I could edit the things I said that came out all wrong.
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists? Do you listen to music while
you’re writing?
As a teenager I was obsessed with Thelonious Monk. Lately I’ve been into Motown. And catchy pop
music. I don’t usually listen to music while I’m writing, but sometimes I’ll throw on the Dead Man
soundtrack and listen to tracks 3 and 11 over and over again.
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows? Movies you watch over and over again? What was the last
movie you saw at the theater?
Ooh, I have lots of favorite TV shows. Most aren’t on the air anymore. Twin Peaks, Freaks and Geeks,
Arrested Development, The Office (BBC version). I can’t wait for season 5 of The Wire. I love the
movies You Can Count on Me and Shortcuts. I’ve seen Amadeus more times than I can count, but I’ve
never rented it and never meant to see it so much. Last movie I saw in a theater: Superbad.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Revise, revise, revise. That is, if you want to write. Don’t get defensive if someone you trust critiques
your work. They might just give you that little nudge that makes your story really shine.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
My next book, Normal, ME, will be published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin, in Summer 2010. That’s
a long time to wait, but in the meantime, you can hear me on the radio. I post all my new radio stories
on my Web site, http://hillaryfrank.com.
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
