What is your name, where were you born and
where do you live now?
Hi, I’m Deborah Hopkinson. I was
born in Lowell, Massachusetts and now I live just outside or Portland, Oregon.
Did you always want to be a writer? If not
what did you want to be?
I think I wanted to be a writer from about
the time I was ten years old. I remember that I used to bring the books I was
reading and hide them behind big geography and history textbooks in school
because I just had to know how the story would end!
Do you work another job as well as your
writing work?
Yes, I am Vice President for Advancement at
Pacific Northwest College of Art, a college of art and design here in Portland,
OR. I have always worked in higher education fundraising in addition
to my writing. It’s challenging, but it’s never been boring to have two
careers. When I visit schools I always tell students not to give up
their dreams just because they also must work at a full-time job.
Did it take a long time to get your first
book published?
I began writing for children when my daughter
was two or three years old, and it took about three years before my
first historical fiction picture book, Sweet Clara and the Freedom
Quilt, was published. I wrote a lot of magazine stories and got
quite a number of rejections in those three years!
What is the name of your latest book?
I actually have two books coming out at the
beginning of 2012: a historical fiction picture book entitled A Boy Called
Dickens, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the novelist’s birth, and on
April 1, a 289-page nonfiction book, Titanic: Voices from the Disaster,
timed to coincide with the centennial of the tragic event.
Did you have to do quite a lot of research on
the Titanic for your book?
Did I research? More
than I ever realized! Previously
I’ve written books that cover long historical periods, so I thought writing
about the Titanic would be easier, since, after all, the boat struck the
iceberg at 11:40 p.m. and the Carpathia sailed away with survivors at around 8:50 a.m. the
following morning. But I found so many conflicting personal accounts, theories
and such a wealth of information that it took me nearly two years.
Where did you get your
Titanic information from?
In my research I used both secondary and
primary sources, especially the testimonies survivors gave to both the American
and British investigating committees. This testimony is now
available online, which is a boon to researchers. Especially helpful
were some of the survivor accounts written directly following the April 15,
1912 disaster.
Is the Titanic something
that really interests you too? If so why?
In my author visits to schools I have
ten-year-old Titanic experts. That wasn’t me (I tend toward
novels) but the more I learned about the ship itself and the disaster, the more
fascinated I became. Of course we know how it ends, but I found,
nevertheless, that I
had a very difficult time writing about
loading the lifeboats and the last moments of the ship. It became very real –
and not just from seeing films about it.
What made you decide to
write factual books?
I love writing both fiction and nonfiction but
have found that with a demanding day career, it is somewhat easier for me to
pick up a nonfiction project on the weekends than it is to plug myself back
into a novel. I think of historical events as providing a sort of
scaffolding for my writing, and for me nonfiction often feels as natural as
breathing.
How do you choose which
subjects to write about?
I follow my own interests to a great degree,
but also try to find something that I think
may have application in the classroom and be
of interest to kids, teachers, and librarians.
I am very interested in helping young readers
develop historical thinking skills and
gaining a sense of historical context. Anniversaries
are helpful in that regard – if you
remember that Charles Dickens was born 200
years ago and that the Titanic disaster
occurred 100 years ago you can start to
compare what was the same – and different between 1812 and 1912, and those
periods and our time.
What can we expect from you
in the future? ie More books of the same genre? Books of a different
genre?
I will probably continue to write picture
books, as well as nonfiction. I hope to do more middle grade fiction
too. My next book, coming out in September 2011 is a picture book
entitled Annie and Helen, with lovely illustrations by Raul
Colon.
Do you have plans for a new
book? Is this book part of a series?
I
am currently working on a middle grade novel set during the 1854 cholera
epidemic in London that features Dr. John Snow, who was born in 1813 and whose
bicentennial will be celebrated next year. I had a chance to go to
London this past summer to research this project and I didn’t want to come
home!
What do you do to unwind
and relax? Do you have a hobby?
I love going to the gym and taking cardio and
strength conditioning classes. That would be my dream life – two
hours working out every day, followed by six hours of writing, and then
finished with two hours gardening and reading, two hobbies I don’t get much
time for now!
Where can readers follow
you?
Readers can follow me at www.deborahhopkinson.com
You can find me on Facebook and Goodreads and
on Twitter @Deborahopkinson.
Thank you for taking the time to take part in this Interview
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