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BIO
I was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When I was eight years old, my father drove us to Western Washington where we called home.
After working in a trendy advertising agency, I decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words I will never forget from my mother. I was in my third-and final-year of law school and my mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. I was shocked to discover that she believed I would become a writer. For the next few months, we collaborated on the worst, most clichéd historical romance ever written.
After my mom's death, I packed up all those bits and pieces of paper we'd collected and put them in a box in the back of my closet. I got married and continued practicing law.
Then I found out I was pregnant, but was on bed rest for five months. By the time I'd read every book in the house and started asking my husband for cereal boxes to read, I knew I was a goner. That's when my darling husband reminded me of the book I'd started with my mom. I pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time my son was born, I'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.
The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred me to try harder, work more. In 1990, I got "the call," and in that moment, I went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and I've never looked back. In all the years between then and now, I have never lost my love of, or my enthusiasm for, telling stories. I am truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer.
© Copyright 2008, Kristin Hannah. All rights reserved.
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INTERVIEW
 February 8, 2008
Kristin Hannah is the author of 16 novels, including BETWEEN SISTERS, THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE, MAGIC HOUR and the newly released FIREFLY LANE. In this interview with Bookreporter.com's Carol Fitzgerald, Erin Quinn and Norah Piehl, Hannah describes her fascination with the complex relationships among women and discusses how she was able to conjure up specific periods of time during which her narrative takes place. She also explains which of her protagonists she can relate to more and reveals some of her most memorable "looks" from the past.
Bookreporter.com: FIREFLY LANE spans several decades in the lives of its main characters. Why did you choose to cover such a sweeping time span with this book, and was there something that triggered the idea for the story?
Kristin Hannah: I think a big part of the inspiration for this book actually came from the idea of time passing. Before FIREFLY LANE, I had written a lot of books that examine a key time in a person's life --- a month, a year, a few years --- but I'd never before tried to capture a person's whole life. I really wanted to show how these girls became friends and how that friendship was the bulkhead of their lives. And as we know, more often than not, a relationship like that is the sum of a dozen little moments that span years. So there you have it...suddenly I'm covering four decades.
BRC: Did you have to do a lot of research to add historical color to Kate and Tully's stories, or did you rely on your own experiences and memories?
KH: To make things easier, I began by making them my own age. That way, I knew that the characters would be experiencing popular culture through the prism of my own life experiences. They were listening to the same music I did, going to the same movies, watching the same television shows. So that part was really drawn from my life. That being said, our memories are often faulty or a little confused, so everything I thought I remembered had to be checked out. In the end, it was a quagmire of work, making sure that every song, current event, TV show, food product, etc. was available when and where I needed it.
BRC: Music is a huge part of the novel --- you even use song lyrics as you introduce each decade in your characters' lives. Did you listen to music as you wrote? If so, what were some key songs or artists on your playlist?
KH: Music is a huge part of our lives, which is why it's so prominent in the book. Who doesn't remember the song they first danced to? The song that used to make them cry? The first album you bought with your own money? I didn't listen to the songs while I was writing, but I was constantly researching the music and using songs to jumpstart my memories and anchor the storylines. The book has its own playlist, which can be found on my website.
BRC: Kate and Tully start out together on Firefly Lane, but they end up making very different choices in their lives. Can you speak a little about the role that the women's movement plays in your story?
KH: In the end, I saw this book as a story of choices. As women, we have endless choices these days and myriad possibilities, but each decision carries a great weight. We try, but it's harder and harder to "have it all," and yet still we strive for that. One of the major themes in this book is the different paths we can take as women and how we live with the choices we make. In the end, I believe Tully and Kate each make the right choice for themselves, but still there is always a sneaky little amount of jealousy for the road not taken. That's really human, I think. We all want just a little of what we don't have. Or think we do.
BRC: Kate and Tully come from different backgrounds and lead very different lifestyles. Do you find yourself relating more with one or the other?
KH: Quite simply, I'm 90% Kate. I wish I had a little more Tully in me. I loved her all-in/larger-than-life personality, but it's not me. So much of Kate is who I am.
BRC: Although the book focuses primarily on a lifelong friendship between two women, you also touch on mother-daughter relationships, a dynamic you've explored in several previous novels. How do you see FIREFLY LANE fitting in to your earlier fiction?
KH: FIREFLY LANE is definitely "of a piece" with my previous novels, in that it's an emotional story of relationships. The biggest difference, as you've pointed out, is the friendship vs. love angle and the passage of time. I think it gives the reader a little more to think about than some of my previous work, a little more to talk about. Tully is a very unique character for me --- she's not even-tempered or rational or thoughtful. Instead, she's a bit overblown, extremely damaged and quite selfish. It was a real challenge to give the readers a character like that and still make her believable and sympathetic. That being said, there's still a solid love story at the center of the book. And as you know, the mother-daughter dynamic is a continual theme of mine. I just can't get enough of the complex nature of that relationship. One of my favorite parts of FIREFLY LANE is the Mrs. Mularkey/Kate/Marah relationship. The story really goes full circle in showing Kate, first as a daughter and then as a mother.
BRC: On your website, you talk about being a mother and sending your son off to college recently. Was writing FIREFLY LANE like taking a trip down "memory lane" for you? Did you go through your old photos, school yearbooks, etc. and reminisce about your life growing up during these decades?
KH: The funny thing was, all I had to do was turn on the music. A few well-chosen songs and those years came back to me in vivid detail. The Farrah Fawcett and Dorothy Hamill haircuts, the Earth shoes, the lava lamps, the punk rock clubs, the Madonna years. It was a blast.
BRC: You clearly are someone who understands the value of female friendships. Do you still keep in touch with girlfriends from high school?
KH: I have packs of girlfriends from every stage in my life. Obviously, some I keep in touch with more than others, but I still hear regularly from high school friends, college friends and career-year friends, as well as the friends I made in the writing communities and at my son's school functions. The best thing about us all is that no matter where we began or where we went in life, we have held on to who we are, and we still have plenty in common.
BRC: Your descriptions of Kate and Tully's hairstyles, makeup and fashions through the years definitely enhance the book. Can you remember your favorite "look" from these periods? And can you also share the one that makes you cringe as you look back?
KH: My most memorable was the Farrah Fawcett hair, low-rise, elephant bell jeans with floral platform sandals, and a mood ring. Wait...that's practically in style now. Who would have thought??? Cringeworthy --- my first perm (which made it look as if I were wearing a poodle draped over my head) and the asymetrical cut, which thankfully, my mother talked me out of.
BRC: FIREFLY LANE seems like the kind of novel that would be perfect for book clubs. What kinds of conversations do you imagine women having with each other after they've read the book?
KH: I'd love it if this book sparked discussion about how important we women are in others' lives, and about the nature of forgiveness. I think those are the central themes of the book. We need to stick together, and sometimes we have to forgive terrible things to make that happen.
BRC: What are you working on now, and when can readers expect to see it?
KH: I have just finished the first draft of my next book. I don't know when it will be published, but I can say that it's a really complex book about a family in Western Washington that is slowly falling apart.
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INTERVIEW
 June 18, 2004
Bookreporter.com Co-Founder Carol Fitzgerald talks to Kristin Hannah, author of THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE, about the challenge of writing her characters and how she conducts research for her books. Kristin also explains her fascination with women in fiction, what she loves (and does not love) about cooking and her plans for future writing.
BRC: THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE is the story of two women whose lives intersect as one woman desperately wants a child and another just as desperately longs for a home and a family. One has a supportive loving family while the other is on her own. Is one character easier to write for you than the other? Or does each have her own set of challenges?
KH: THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE is, in great part, a story about motherhood. I wanted to explore the many facets of it --- how it affects a woman who wants it and can't have it...and one who has it and doesn't want it...and finally, one who isn't ready for it. There are four key "mothers" in the story and each of them approaches the greatest job in the world in very different ways.
One of the many surprises for me in writing the book was how the various outlooks and characters presented themselves to me. I expected that Angie and Lauren, the two heroines, would be the easiest characters to write. This isn't how it turned out, however. Lauren was an absolute joy to write. From the moment I moved into her head, she came to me. I understood her sense of humor, her drive and ambition, her needs. Perhaps this is because I have a teenage son and am around his female friends all the time. But Angie wasn't so easy. She took literally dozens of drafts. I was constantly searching for the "core" of her. At first, I thought it was all going to be about her need to have a baby; in the end, that became a secondary consideration. The key to her character wasn't found in the lack in her life, it was found in her realization of what he'd been given and had inadvertently lost or overlooked. Maybe that's because we humans are apparently driven by what we don't have; but we're defined by how we deal with what do have. Angie had to learn that even though she hadn't been blessed by having a child, she could still be a mother.
BRC: You write with great familiarity about Italian-Americans and what it is like when these families gather --- lots of food (usually a table of family favorites) and much conversation. Is any of your heritage Italian or how did you research this aspect of the book?
KH: Actually, I come from a very small Welsh and English family. We're lucky to have ten people around a table at any given time. In addition to our small number, we're very non-traditional. Last year we celebrated Thanksgiving with a barbeque in Hawaii. The year before that, most of the family got together in Costa Rica for Thanksgiving. The highlight of that holiday was a jungle kayak ride with my Dad's great new wife. So, yes, the family in THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE took research and imagination. My family loved it because every time I needed a recipe for the restaurant, I went into my own kitchen and started cooking.
As to the big, meddling, loving Catholic Italian family, I quizzed two friends for all the details. The biggest stumbling block was Angie's relationship with her mother. Honestly, I didn't know what it was like to have a mother when you're a grown woman yourself. I wondered if she still hovered over you, and critiqued your wardrobe and makeup choices, and tried to tell you what to do. The overwhelming response from my friends was Yes! A mom is always a mom, no matter how old the daughter gets. It was a lot of fun and quite cathartic, actually, to write a healthy, happy mother-daughter relationship. It gave me a chance to imagine how my mom and I would have been.
BRC: THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE is filled with wonderful cooking. You can almost taste the lasagna and the Bolognese sauce from your descriptions. Tell us about your own cooking. Do you enjoy cooking or is it a chore?
KH: To me, there are two definitions of cooking. The first and most obvious is the daily grind of coming up with "what's for dinner, Mom?" You can tell by how I've phrased the answer, how I feel about that one. It started losing its glow for me a few years back. Okay, a decade or so. But cooking...ah, that's something else entirely. I love spending time in the kitchen, creating new and delicious dishes that make me and everyone at the table happy. And Italian cooking is my absolute favorite. Often, after a long and frustrating day at the computer, I will sneak into my kitchen, pull down one of my beloved cookbooks and make a multi-course dinner. I'm no psychiatrist, but I think I love the result-orientedness of the task. Unlike writing a book, which can go on forever and be a different thing every day, I can create a perfect plate of Chicken piccata. For all you similarly minded chefs out there, I recommend any cookbook by Biba. She's the greatest!
BRC: You write about the tension that women feel in their lives --- the pull between work and motherhood, between building a relationship and being strong on their own. This realistic look at the world is part of what draws your readers to your books and your characters. When you start writing a book, have you developed what "the tension" will be, or does this evolve as you write?
KH: You're right about what draws me to write these novels. I'm fascinated by the choices that face women. We are strong, vibrant people who feel the need to do everything well, and yet to take care of everyone else as we do it. Balancing these two needs is a constant struggle. Someone, somewhere, convinced us that we could "do it all" and "have it all." To a certain extent, we can, but all too often, the one person who is lost in all that rush to succeed is us. We do our jobs and take care of our families...and forget to take care of ourselves. I can't tell you how seldom I actually find the time to go see a movie with girlfriends, or get my hair cut and colored, or have a spa day.
And yes, my women are often in the same small boat. I often am drawn to the moment in their lives when all that forgetting comes to a head. The day we realize how much of ourselves we've lost and the subsequent journey of re-discovery. Usually, I begin a book knowing where the woman is on that journey, and where she will end up, but often the road itself is a mystery that I uncover on a day by day, word by word basis.
BRC: One of the tears in Angie and Conlan's relationship comes from her single-minded goal to become a mom. She does not see how that is fractionalizing her relationship with him or how much she has hurt him. It's interesting how you are able to draw readers to one side of the story and then show them the entire picture. After hearing from Conlan, a reader's perception of Angie may be changed. When you are writing, how far in advance do you plot ideas like this?
KH: On a good day, I've known that revelatory minute is coming and have worked toward it. Sadly, I don't have too many of those good days. The dynamics of the Angie-Conlan relationship in this book was one of the more fascinating angles of the novel to write. In the first several drafts, Conlan had a viewpoint; in other words, his story ran parallel to Angie's and was as important. I really spent a lot of time exploring a man's reaction to infertility and the way he felt about the resulting demise of their marriage. Somewhere along the way, however, I realized that this was a woman's quest book. His emotions were relevant primarily in how they affected hers.
Surprisingly, I discovered this on about the sixth draft of the book. It happened quite accidentally, while I was writing a scene about two-thirds of the way through the novel. In it, Angie visits his office when he isn't there. A mutual friend says something like: "Leave him alone. You've hurt him enough." The woman reveals that twice in the past year, she'd come into Conlan's office and found him crying. Angie had never seen her husband cry about their lost daughter. The entire dynamic came from that single sentence. In that moment, I realized that Angie had been so focused on her own needs that she'd been systematically excluding him from her life for years. Her whole character came to me then. I went back to the beginning of the novel, cut Conlan's viewpoint, and re-crafted Angie.
BRC: Is West End much like the town where you live?
KH: Well, most of Western Washington is like West End, in that it's beautiful and green and near a body of water, and all of those descriptions certainly match my hometown. However, West End was more of an idealized version of a coastal town in the southern part of the state, one of those towns hit hard by the loss of salmon runs and the diminished timber industry. In my mind, it's more like one of the towns I grew up in.
BRC: Your books capture the Pacific Northwest so vividly and really give readers such a feel for this part of the country that, I for one, want to visit there. Your descriptions enhance your work so much. I know you have mentioned that you love to write at the beach. When you are describing other locations, do you travel to them to do research or write from memory?
KH: In the early part of my career, I wrote books that were set all over the world. I did endless research, wrote thousands of notecards, and spent hours standing in the stacks at the graduate library. I loved imagining all these different settings. It wasn't until my first contemporary novel, HOME AGAIN, that I came home myself. That book was set in my own backyard, pretty much. I was surprised how much I enjoyed that, but it wasn't really until ON MYSTIC LAKE that I realized the depth of my affinity for this place. In that book --- and in all the books since --- the northwest truly became one of the characters. I discovered that I loved introducing readers to my special corner of the world. As to research, it now comes down to weekends with the family in different small towns along the coast. I still do a lot of fact-based research --- the local economy, the weather, the political history --- but all of that takes second seat to simply soaking in the scenery and feeling as if I belong there.
For my next novel, I'm heading back to the magnificent Olympic rainforest. I can't seem to stay away from that county for long. I guess I'm like the swordferns that grow in the black, loamy soil --- I need the rainfall to survive.
BRC: You enjoy spending time in Hawaii and part of BETWEEN SISTERS took place there. Are there any other locations that spark your interest like the Pacific Northwest?
KH: I didn't realize my connection to Hawaii for quite a while. I first went there with my family when I was about fifteen years old. Every time I went in the water, I heard the Jaws theme song in my head. I didn't spend much time in the water. I went back at 17, when I graduated from high school. Four girlfriends on their own. Unfortunately, I left all my clothes on top of the dryer and took an empty suitcase; then, when we got to Waikiki, we lathered up with baby oil and ran to the beach, where we proceeded to sunbathe for five hours. I spent the remainder of the vacation lying on my bed, trying not to move. I looked like a lobster. (We all did).
The next trip was to Kauai for my sister's wedding. Seven days in paradise with the whole family...during a tropical rainstorm. The wind was so hard the patio furniture often tumbled past our window, and the rain literally nailed you in place. The electricity went out almost every day, leaving my husband and me in a dark room with a two-year-old. Amazingly, we went back about five years later for the RWA national convention, and that's when my love affair with the island of Kauai started. I still love the rain of my hometown, but I've learned to love the tropical colors --- and yes, the sunshine --- of the Garden Island. As to other places I love, here's a quick list: Manhattan, London, the Big Sur coast, northern Idaho, the San Juan and Gulf Islands, and British Columbia. If I ever go to New Zealand, I'm sure I'll add that to the list, too. (Yes, I'm a Lord of the Rings geek. Matrix, too, if you're interested).
BRC: Your books wrap so nicely usually with all details pulled together. I wonder if you tuck them away in your head quite the same way. Do you or do your characters stay with you?
KH: In general, when I put a book to bed, I say goodnight to the characters and tuck them into bed, and there they stay. Only in very rare instances do characters "stay" with me. Ironically, the ones that seem to stick in my mind are often not the "stars" of the novels in which they appeared. Some of the characters who linger in my mind are: Selena from WAITING FOR THE MOON, Francis from HOME AGAIN, Izzy from ON MYSTIC LAKE, Julian from ANGEL FALLS, and Val from HOME AGAIN, ANGEL FALLS, and SUMMER ISLAND. I wouldn't be surprised to find that a character from my next novel, a girl named Alice, belongs on that list.
BRC: Have you ever been tempted to write a series?
KH: No. I think it's the Libra thing again. I like a beginning, a middle, and an end. I really like an end. I have written one spin off, and perhaps someday there will be another, but I really like finishing one project and then starting something else that's entirely new. That being said, however, I will say that Julian True from ANGEL FALLS has been on my mind of late. Maybe someday I'll stumble across his second chapter.
BRC: Your book ON MYSTIC LAKE is being re-released as a trade paperback this month. This is the one book that readers always ask if there will be a sequel to. I thought of another idea for this. Have you ever thought about writing a followup from the perspective of Isabella or Katie?
KH: I am continually asked about a sequel for this book, and frankly, it always surprises me. To me, the answer is clear: they live happily ever after. The idea of Izzy's story is new and interesting. Heaven knows I have plenty of years to figure out her future. I don't know honestly if I'd ever consider that --- who knows? --- but I would certainly not be surprised to "meet" Izzy again in a few years in another book, about another family, set in the same place.
BRC: What are you working on now and when can readers expect to see it?
KH: As I said before, I'm back in my beloved rainforest, writing about a girl who arrives unexpectedly in a small, isolated town. Her appearance will really shake up the community and change a lot of lives. I'm not sure yet of every twist and turn in the story, but I know that Alice has quite a story to tell. I'll check back in a few months from now, and let you all know how it's going.
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