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Kristin Hannah was a lawyer before becoming a writer and learning that "it's really hard to write even a bad novel." But her persistence paid off. She has penned more than a dozen titles, several of which are New York Times bestsellers.

She says her latest novel, "Night Road," is based largely on her personal experience during her son's senior year in high school. Hannah, who writes her novels in longhand with a legal pad and a "certain kind of pen," visits Writers Talk to discuss her novels which she says are "about women, for women."

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00:00:05
00:00:09	From the Center for the Studying and the Teaching
00:00:10	of Writing at The Ohio State University, this is
00:00:12	Writers Talk. I'm Doug Dangler.
00:00:15	Kristin Hannah has written eighteen novels at
00:00:17	least, including Firefly Lane, True Colors, and
00:00:20	Winter Garden. A former lawyer, Hannah lives
00:00:23	with her son and her husband in the Pacific
00:00:26	Northwest and, most unfairly, Hawaii.
00:00:29	She's in town with the Thurber House Evenings
00:00:31	with Authors to read from her latest novel Night
00:00:33	Road. Welcome to Writers Talk, Kristin Hannah.
00:00:36	>>Thank you. It's nice to be here.
00:00:37	>>Well tell me, in an interview with Emily
00:00:41	Giffin you said "I'm a pretty analytical gal and
00:00:45	I approach writing in the same just the facts
00:00:48	ma'am way I approach most things.
00:00:51	I need to find an issue that engages me on an
00:00:52	intellectual level and then I need to marry that
00:00:54	curiosity with a kind of passion." So tell me
00:00:57	about marrying curiosity and passion.
00:01:00	How does that work for you?
00:01:02	>>Gosh, that's a great question.
00:01:03	I haven't gotten that one before.
00:01:05	You know, it's about finding what I have to say.
00:01:10	I think that what we authors have and what we
00:01:13	bring to the table is more than just a collection
00:01:15	of words or a story with a beginning, a middle,
00:01:18	and an end. I think it's really about presenting
00:01:21	our worldview as much as anything else.
00:01:24	For me it's about finding some issue that I am
00:01:29	willing to think about constantly for a year or a
00:01:33	year and a half and put together in all different
00:01:36	ways and sort of move it around like pieces on a
00:01:41	board. That's how I see a book, like a chess
00:01:44	board where I'm moving things around until
00:01:46	I find this perfect fusion for me of the answer
00:01:50	of my curiosity and this passion that drives
00:01:52	me to start the book in the first place.
00:01:54	>>Apply that to Night Road. What was the
00:01:58	thing that got you originally interested?
00:02:00	You said I want to spend a year on this issue.
00:02:02	>>Well, interestingly enough, Night Road is one
00:02:04	of the few books that comes pretty completely
00:02:07	from my own life. Usually they are pure imagination
00:02:10	but this one really had a starting point in my own
00:02:13	life and that was my son's senior year of high
00:02:16	school. You remember it.
00:02:19	As an adult you remember senior year as this time
00:02:22	where everything was perfect and you had a great
00:02:25	time and then suddenly you're a parent and from
00:02:29	that side of the fence the whole year is a very
00:02:32	different experience. For someone who had.
00:02:36	I mean I was a working mom, but I was also a stay
00:02:38	at home mom and so my son and I were vey, very
00:02:43	close. It was a really difficult year trying to balance
00:02:49
00:02:50	his needs and my beliefs on how the world works
00:02:53	and how dangerous it is out there for teens right
00:02:56	now and trying to get him to fly away the way he
00:03:02	was supposed to but keep him safe that year also.
00:03:06	I didn't realize until after it was over how
00:03:09	stressful it had been and so that was sort of the
00:03:11	start of Night Road.
00:03:13	>>In your preface to Night Road you describe
00:03:14	yourself as a helicopter parent and you share
00:03:18	this trait with Jude, one of the main characters
00:03:22	in the book. I'm curious about your writing
00:03:24	that because authors always write themselves
00:03:26	into their characters. They may not tell their
00:03:28	audience right out front hey, you're going to see
00:03:29	a big part of me in this novel, but did you worry
00:03:33	about the reactions to that? When you were writing
00:03:35	Jude did you consciously have to work with your
00:03:39	presentation of that aspect?
00:03:41	>>Well what concerned me about that was that
00:03:45	Jude. We have this common aspect of being perhaps
00:03:50	a too involved parent, but then Jude goes off the map
00:03:56	and becomes in a lot of ways a bad parent in some
00:03:59	of her reactions to the things that happen to her
00:04:02	in the book. I did have some concern that people
00:04:05	would say oh, this is you, but readers tend to,
00:04:07	as you said, see me in all of my characters anyway
00:04:13	so there wasn't really much I could do about it.
00:04:17	I can't really worry about how I'm perceived
00:04:20	because I am a thing apart from the book, which
00:04:24	is what matters.
00:04:27	>>There are a couple of times in here when I
00:04:31	wondered, as you said it was a personal book for
00:04:33	you, whether it was a therapeutic kind of writing
00:04:36	for you writing about the anxieties of parenthood
00:04:39	because some of the anxieties, some of the worst
00:04:41	possibilities not to give anything away.
00:04:44	There are bad things that happen in the novel.
00:04:47	As you were writing through that did you think
00:04:51	this is my working out the ghosts that I'm
00:04:55	worried about?
00:04:58	>>Interestingly enough, not so much in this
00:05:00	book. I have had books that were more therapeutic
00:05:01	that were about issues that I faced precisely and
00:05:07	then you go back as an author and you're revisiting
00:05:09	some incredibly painful time and revealing some
00:05:14	of yourself as you're writing about this.
00:05:17	In Night Road the really, really difficult
00:05:20	aspects of the plot didn't happen to me and they
00:05:22	were purely fiction, so it wasn't therapeutic in
00:05:25	the sense that I was releasing my own demons or
00:05:31	releasing my own feelings.
00:05:33	It did make me, I think, question what kind of
00:05:37	mother I had been and what kind of mother I want
00:05:40	to be to my now grown son and that was interesting.
00:05:44	>>And what did you take away from that?
00:05:48	Did that change you?
00:05:50	>>It did actually. I don't know if it's the book
00:05:52	or simply him getting through college and getting
00:05:55	a job, a natural evolution, but I've really come to
00:06:01
00:06:01	understand that I need to trust him more.
00:06:03	That I should have trusted him more then and I
00:06:05	should certainly trust him more now.
00:06:07	>>That's really interesting because there is
00:06:08	one pivotal moment in the book where I think the
00:06:12	people are trusted and they don't do a very good
00:06:15	job with the trust.
00:06:16	>>Yes. Well there's the rep for a parent, right?
00:06:18	Ultimately all you can do is give them the tools,
00:06:21	give them the best that you can, be there as a
00:06:23	safety net if they need you and hope that they'll
00:06:28	call. I think in this book when Jude is presented with
00:06:33	that moment, she fails also. This book is really about
00:06:38	the consequences of making bad decisions
00:06:43	sometimes even with the best of intentions.
00:06:46	>>I've read, incredibly, that you write long hand.
00:06:48	This is almost a four hundred-page book. This is true?
00:06:50	>>This is true.
00:06:54	>>So what do you need to be able to write
00:06:59	besides a pencil? I've read that you will write anywhere.
00:07:01	>>Yes. That is why I write long hand so that I
00:07:05	can write anywhere.
00:07:06	I write a lot of my books sitting on the beach in
00:07:08	Hawaii on my leni on my deck chair.
00:07:11	I know, it's horrible for people to hear, but I do.
00:07:13	>>This is what all authors do.
00:07:17	>>What I need is a specific notepad, the old
00:07:19	legal pad from when I was a lawyer and a certain
00:07:22	kind of pen because I write really fast and the
00:07:28	ink has to flow just so. I give the long hand to
00:07:31	my assistant who enters it into the computer and
00:07:34	miraculously hands me hard copies, which I then edit on.
00:07:38	>>That was my next question.
00:07:40	When you write long hand, my experience has
00:07:43	always been that it's terrible to edit and that's
00:07:45	why I don't write long hand, but you have this
00:07:46	magical intermediary.
00:07:49	>>She just hands it back to me. Then when I do the
00:07:52	editing, the first couple of drafts I usually have to add
00:07:58	so much material that I go back to the yellow pads
00:07:59	within the manuscript. I know that a book is coming
00:08:01	together when I can edit the whole thing together
00:08:03	on manuscript. It means that the scenes are where
00:08:06	they're supposed to be.
00:08:08	>>When you're working really hard, do you have
00:08:14
00:08:14	a page set a day? Do you say I want this many
00:08:16	pages today, this many words today and do you
00:08:19	have the same thing for when you're revising?
00:08:22	>>No. In terms of.
00:08:24	I mean I have numbers in my head that I like to
00:08:26	do. In the beginning of the book I like to get three
00:08:31	to five pages a day. At the end of a book I like to get
00:08:33	ten to fifteen. That's kind of a ballpark in terms
00:08:39
00:08:39	of the writing of it.
00:08:40	>>You say the end, like when you're revising at
00:08:42	the end or when you're really hitting your stride?
00:08:44	>>When I'm hitting my stride in the first
00:08:45	draft. I write a lot of unnecessary stuff, I have
00:08:51	to be fast. A book is usually seven or eight hundred
00:08:56	pages and I throw away three or four hundred of them.
00:08:59	>>What makes something unnecessary?
00:09:01	I mean you've written it. When you come back can you
00:09:03	say? I know it's hard being specific but you come back
00:09:05	and say this isn't working for X reason.
00:09:07	What are those reasons?
00:09:09	>>Generally, I have created characters that
00:09:11	don't say what I have to say or don't further the
00:09:15	plot or the point that I have in mind.
00:09:18	I'll change a lot because in the beginning I
00:09:22	think I know what I want and invariably at some
00:09:27	point I will write a scene, usually around page
00:09:30	two hundred, that is so right that I will look at
00:09:33	it and go that's the whole book and then I have
00:09:36	to go back and start over and make it all match that.
00:09:38	>>What was the scene for this book?
00:09:41	Not to give it away. That may be too difficult of a question.
00:09:45	>>Which one did I find the book?
00:09:49	>>Yeah.
00:09:50	>>I would say it has to do with after the big,
00:09:54	dark event. I really had to work with Jude's character
00:09:57	and how to get it just right. I finally got the scene
00:10:03
00:10:03	when Jude's response to this question of a trial and
00:10:09
00:10:11	when I understood what she wanted at that moment,
00:10:15	I knew who she was.
00:10:17	>>Ok. Do you have a writing routine though?
00:10:22	You write anywhere. You're very specific about pens and paper.
00:10:24	Do you sit down and say I really have to start in
00:10:30
00:10:35	this way and end in this way?
00:10:36	Do you have that particular kind of process?
00:10:40	>>You know it just sounds so OCD.
00:10:41	Yes, I do have that kind of a process. I'm very specific.
00:10:44	I usually do about three months of research and
00:10:49	then I come up with the synopsis.
00:10:52	I usually write about a twenty page synopsis of
00:10:55	what I think the book is going to be about and
00:10:58	who I think the characters are going to be and
00:10:59	what I believe the major three acts of the book
00:11:03	will be. Once I've got all that in my head if I can sit
00:11:07	down with my legal pad and sort of free think the
00:11:13
00:11:14	first thirty scenes, who for me is roughly the
00:11:17	first six or seven chapters.
00:11:19	If I can do that without stopping then I know
00:11:21	it's time to start the book and that's when I start.
00:11:24	>>When you do a synopsis is that all story or
00:11:26	are you also doing theme?
00:11:29	Do you say I'm going to give this as my story
00:11:31	blah, blah, blah, but here are the themes that I
00:11:32	want to work with.
00:11:34	>>Mine is almost entirely emotional arcs.
00:11:37	I am interested in how people respond to what
00:11:40	happens to them so I will know maybe three
00:11:42	specific plot points.
00:11:46	What I really know is how the people change over
00:11:51	the course of the period that I have and there is
00:11:52	always one big element.
00:11:55	There's some big tragedy, there's some big test
00:11:57	because I really write books about, I think,
00:12:00	women stuck facing the worst year of their life
00:12:05	for some reason.
00:12:09	Basically then it's this evolution of finding out
00:12:12	who the woman is, what happens to her, how she
00:12:14	responds to her, how she changes and how she
00:12:16	triumphs ultimately.
00:12:20	>>When you get categorized or when you're
00:12:22	thinking of categorizing yourself, what genre
00:12:24	does that fall into? The worst year of your life genre.
00:12:26	What do you call that?
00:12:28	>>Yeah, that's my own genre I guess.
00:12:29	It's really women's fiction. I mean I write books
00:12:31	about women, for women. I have some male
00:12:34	readership depending on the topic.
00:12:37	I wrote a book called Winter Garden that was
00:12:40	about Russia in World War II and that got a very
00:12:42	big male readership, but by and large I write
00:12:44	about women.
00:12:46	>>I was curious about that because you describe
00:12:49	that on your website as you're working with
00:12:52	historical fiction which, correct me if I'm
00:12:54	wrong, I don't think you've done prior to that.
00:12:58	>>Well I actually started in historical
00:12:59	fiction, but that was in the dark ages so it's
00:13:01	been a long time.
00:13:02	>>This was the first novel you wrote along with your mom?
00:13:05	>>That was book one.
00:13:09	>>Book one, ok. Which didn't come out, sadly.
00:13:11	>>Very bad.
00:13:13	>>I think you called it the. Your website refers to it as the
00:13:17	worst written novel ever. Or worst romance novel ever.
00:13:18	>>Which of course may be self aggrandizing, but
00:13:22	it was right up there.
00:13:23	>>Ok. Now you're part of a.
00:13:25	Your background, like you said, you are a lawyer
00:13:28	and you were on bed rest for five months during a
00:13:30	pregnancy and your website describes that time
00:13:35	as, "by the time I had read every book in the
00:13:38	house and started asking my husband for cereal
00:13:39	boxes to read, I knew I was a goner." Now I'm
00:13:43	tempted to ask who writes the best cereal boxes.
00:13:46	We'll let that go. Tell me instead how this period
00:13:49	of intense reading brought you to writing?
00:13:51	What was it about all that reading because that's
00:13:53	when you decided to start writing, right?
00:13:56	>>Well it's part of it. Yeah.
00:13:58	What had happened was when my mom was dying of
00:14:01	breast cancer I was in law school and she had
00:14:04	sort of begun this dialogue with me saying you're
00:14:08	going to be a writer.
00:14:10	This is something you should do and we started
00:14:12	plotting this book together.
00:14:17	I really had no real interest in being a writer.
00:14:19	I was on my way to being a lawyer, you know.
00:14:22	It wasn't until after she passed away and it was
00:14:26	years later when I was on the bed rest so I
00:14:28	already had all this information.
00:14:31	I had a plot, I had all the research, I had
00:14:33	everything I needed to theoretically begin
00:14:35	writing a book. Not talent or whatever, but
00:14:38	I thought how hard could it be really?
00:14:43	Then you read some not good novels and you think
00:14:46	well anyone can do this and I'll give it a try
00:14:48	and so that's really how it started and I learned
00:14:50	of course very quickly what everyone learns,
00:14:53	which is that it is really hard even to write
00:14:56	novel. It really takes a lot of time.
00:14:58	It took me several years to learn how to craft a
00:15:02	book that would sell, but by this time I knew
00:15:04	that I wanted to be a stay at home mom so I just
00:15:08	gave over to it.
00:15:09	>>Is that the move then from lawyer to writer
00:15:11	because you talk about this with Emily Giffin
00:15:16	who's also a recovering lawyer?
00:15:18	There must be a twelve-step program for people
00:15:20	moving into. Didn't want to make that comment.
00:15:24	Why? Was it just being the stay at home mom the
00:15:27	freedom that the writing gave you?
00:15:31	>>Yes because when I first started writing it
00:15:35	wasn't like I had a gift or an obsession or even
00:15:38	a desire really to write books. I did not approach it
00:15:42	that way. I think at the time I thought surely it took
00:15:47	something special to be a writer.
00:15:49	That's the sort of thing that you would always
00:15:52	have to know. I just didn't really see myself that
00:15:56	way. I just thought, I'll try to write, I'll try to
00:15:59	learn and teach myself how to do this because
00:16:01	this would be a really great job with a small
00:16:06	child. It wasn't until. I mean I can remember it exactly.
00:16:08	It was a book called On Mystic Lake in 1999 when
00:16:12	I sort of left the genre behind and wrote my
00:16:16	first big women's fiction novel and that's when
00:16:20	it really got its hooks in me and I thought this
00:16:23	is now very important to me.
00:16:25	This is what I want to do with my life.
00:16:27	>>What were the hooks that got into you?
00:16:28	What was it that made you come back to it?
00:16:30	It started off because the career itself worked
00:16:35	well for you as a person, but what was the thing
00:16:38	that kept you coming back after that?
00:16:39	>>I think when I moved into women's fiction and
00:16:44	issues about women's lives and issues that
00:16:46	mattered to me and my girl friends and my family
00:16:50	that I felt extremely strongly about,
00:16:54	philosophically, morally, everything, I think the
00:16:56	challenge then to write the kind of book that I
00:17:02
00:17:03	had in my head and that I could be really proud
00:17:05	of and that would consume me just took over.
00:17:11	Suddenly it was really important for me to learn
00:17:15	my craft even at the next level.
00:17:20	>>How do you do that?
00:17:23	How do you learn your craft at the next level?
00:17:26	So you're saying, if I'm understanding you
00:17:28	correctly, you've got this trajectory that you
00:17:31	get to a certain point and say ok, On Mystic Lake
00:17:34	from here on it's something different.
00:17:36	>>Well, you get to that point and I had written
00:17:41	five novels at that point and you know how to
00:17:43	craft a story, you've learned how to create
00:17:45	characters, you've learned to write sentences
00:17:46	when put together create a novel.
00:17:48	You learned kind of the basics. Where I wanted to
00:17:54	go from there was to learn the next step.
00:17:58	I wanted to try to learn to write well, to create
00:18:02	complex, multifaceted characters.
00:18:05	Just basically to get better to get bigger to get
00:18:08	broader. It is a very difficult thing to do because.
00:18:14	And you don't know if you're doing it.
00:18:18	All you can do, I think, is continually ask more
00:18:22	from yourself and try to be better every single time.
00:18:25	Try to be bigger, deeper, more complex every time.
00:18:29	>>How does that not drive you just insane?
00:18:31	>>We are insane.
00:18:32	>>Ok, good.
00:18:33	>>I'm insane. There is no doubt about it.
00:18:35	Because when you're saying you just ask more of
00:18:39	yourself, but how do you define that when you're
00:18:41	writing? At the end of the day do you say?
00:18:42	How do you ever reach a point when you're
00:18:46	satisfied with something if you say I want to
00:18:48	make it better? How do you go back to revise to
00:18:51	make it better and not just constantly revise?
00:18:54	>>I mean I do. I do sixteen or seventeen drafts and
00:18:58	even then when I finish I understand or I see the chasm
00:19:03	that exists between my writing and what I think
00:19:06	writing can be. I mean everybody can see that.
00:19:09	You can look at the best out there and be sort of
00:19:13	humbled and amazed and so there's always
00:19:16	something that you can do better.
00:19:20	I think it's about, for me for what I'm writing,
00:19:23	trying to create characters that are just more
00:19:26	real. That's my constant challenge.
00:19:29	>>Who are the people that you look to for that
00:19:34	kind of writing?
00:19:36	>>Well, there are so many different things
00:19:39	because there are people that I look to for plot.
00:19:42	There's people that I look to for pace, there's
00:19:44	people that I look to for voice.
00:19:50
00:19:52	People like Gabriel Marquez, Pat Conroy, who just
00:19:54	sentence by sentence slay me.
00:19:57	There are all different authors depending on what
00:20:01	it is I'm trying to learn.
00:20:06	>>In the same interview with Emily Giffin you
00:20:08	said, "it is absolutely amazing how much more
00:20:11	time it takes to be an author these days." That eye roll.
00:20:12	>>Yes.
00:20:16	>>Is that in reference to your blog, your website?
00:20:21	I mean, you're on tour, but authors have always
00:20:27
00:20:28	gone on tours since Dickens or earlier.
00:20:29	What is it that has changed for you to take more
00:20:31	time? You're writing the same as ever.
00:20:32	The same speed on the legal pad.
00:20:34	>>Well for me it's two-fold. First of all, the books
00:20:36	themselves are bigger and more complex, so the books
00:20:42	themselves take more time.
00:20:45	I'm trying to do that in the same amount of time.
00:20:48	It's like trying to put too much in Tupperware,
00:20:51	there's just only so much space.
00:20:55	>>I am sure you're the first author that said
00:20:57	writing a novel is like putting too much food
00:20:59	into Tupperware.
00:21:02	>>Well, you're trying to do so much in a quick
00:21:07	amount of time and that is always I think the
00:21:11	challenge for commercial writers.
00:21:12	I don't have the luxury of taking five years
00:21:17	between books. It's a career for me and it's a job
00:21:20	as well and I need to produce in a timely manner.
00:21:25	So there's that. Then on top of that of course it
00:21:29	used to be ok for a writer to spend all of their life
00:21:35	writing and ten days on tour.
00:21:38	Now there is Facebook, there's blogging.
00:21:39	It's just a lot more pressure on our time and a
00:21:45
00:21:46	lot more things that we need to do to connect
00:21:50	with our readers. We obviously like it, but it's
00:21:52	more time consuming.
00:21:54	>>Well let's pick up on that because recently
00:21:56	on your Facebook page you mentioned traveling to
00:21:58	Columbus and asked for a weather report.
00:21:59	What is Columbus like? I see that you got fifty-six
00:22:02	responses in about a day and a half.
00:22:03	By comparison, what I asked on the same Facebook
00:22:08	page of curious questions to ask you, I didn't
00:22:10	get any responses so I'm living with anonymity.
00:22:12	That's fine. How do you not get drawn into it though?
00:22:17	Because you respond to people on Facebook.
00:22:19	>>I did get drawn into it, yes. The question I get
00:22:23	on tour constantly is it you? Yes, it's me.
00:22:24	Maybe there are people who have other people
00:22:26	answering for them, but I don't.
00:22:30	I'm trying to answer these readers because if
00:22:33	they are willing to take time to ask me a
00:22:37	question, I really would like to respond and I
00:22:41	think that's the whole point of this whole social
00:22:44	networking. Either do it or don't do it.
00:22:46	I couldn't find a way to do it half way.
00:22:48	>>How much time do you have to spend then?
00:22:49	Is it an hour a day, a half hour a day?
00:22:51	When you talk about the time sync of being a
00:22:55	modern author, how much of it is spent on your blog?
00:22:57	>>Actually that's what I like about Facebook
00:23:00	because it's quick. At the moment I probably spend
00:23:05	probably a half and hour a day and it's become sort of this
00:23:08	decompression time when I finish writing, I go to
00:23:11	my computer, I sit down and I answer what I have
00:23:15	for the day and kind of go on from there.
00:23:16	By the way, I don't think anyone said rain.
00:23:20	>>But if you go to Facebook for a weather report
00:23:25	you're probably in you're probably in the wrong place.
00:23:28	Plus Ohio, our weather is unpredictable.
00:23:32	My follow up on that though is which do you enjoy
00:23:38
00:23:40	the blogging? You write about the blogging,
00:23:42	which is more of a slice of life for you.
00:23:44	It's a couple paragraphs. But is that something that
00:23:46	you say here is something that maybe a danger
00:23:48	because what if I'm writing along on this and I
00:23:50	accidentally give away a plot point or something that
00:23:52	I don't really want to share?
00:23:54	How much do you have to pull back?
00:23:56	>>Well, first and foremost we come back to the
00:23:59	analytical girl part. I'm not going to accidentally
00:24:02	give away a plot point. What I am accidentally going
00:24:07	to do is give away too much of my life, be too
00:24:11	available emotionally or personally and so I do
00:24:14	worry about that a little bit.
00:24:17	Blogging is slightly more difficult because a,
00:24:23	it's writing and so when we authors write, we
00:24:28	want it to be good. It becomes this time analysis.
00:24:32	How much time am I going to spend to make this
00:24:36	sound like I want it to sound?
00:24:38	It's more revealing and you don't know if there's
00:24:44	a response the way you do on Facebook.
00:24:46	Facebook is so instantaneous.
00:24:47	You can see you fan base growing, you can see
00:24:50	people that are coming on and leaving and it's
00:24:53	helpful to know who's out there.
00:24:55	And I have to say it has brought people to the
00:25:00	events on the tour, which has been nice.
00:25:02	>>The Facebook? But you don't know about the blog?
00:25:05	>>I don't know about the blog, yeah, >>Because
00:25:07	there is no way to tell. Last question.
00:25:10	You've got a lot of stuff on your website about
00:25:13	book clubs. You will interact with them in a lot of
00:25:17	different ways. You'll Skype into them, you'll call in.
00:25:22	Are book clubs increasing in popularity to you?
00:25:24	>>Yeah. I mean that's been I think a huge component
00:25:30
00:25:32	of why the books have been selling so well in the
00:25:33	last couple of years. They've really been embraced
00:25:34	by book clubs. For example, Night Road is sort of
00:25:36	custom-made for book clubs because there are some
00:25:37	really meaty issues that women can argue about.
00:25:40	What's the right thing to do? What's the best way to parent?
00:25:42	All of that. Those kind of discussion points have just
00:25:47	really helped book clubs embrace the book.
00:25:51	>>Do you see an overlap between those book
00:25:57	clubs and, like you were saying, Facebook?
00:25:59	Does it seem like you're kind of carrying on the
00:26:02	same things between the two things or are they
00:26:05	not? I'm wondering if there is a parallel there and if
00:26:08	that's connected to online reading at all.
00:26:10	>>I don't see that. I mean it's possible that people that
00:26:14	come in on Facebook aren't telling me whether they're in
00:26:20
00:26:21	book clubs, but a lot of the times. I talk to book clubs
00:26:23	several times a week via phone and most of them
00:26:28	say that they are not on Facebook.
00:26:33	>>Really? Do you think that that helps you really
00:26:34	connect with your readers, give them voices?
00:26:37	>>Facebook?
00:26:39	>>No, no. Your book clubs and corresponding to them.
00:26:43	That's as valuable to you as the interaction on Facebook.
00:26:46	>>I just really love hearing what my readers say about my books.
00:26:52
00:26:53	Unfortunately they tend to be so nice. I mean they don't really
00:26:55	want to say the bad things.
00:26:56	>>This is someone getting good reviews that
00:26:58	loves to hear about it.
00:27:01	>>I sometime have to draw out negatives because
00:27:04	I'm interested in what people didn't like as much
00:27:07	as what they did like. The book clubs can be really
00:27:11	helpful in that way and they're just fun to talk to.
00:27:13	>>And these are throughout the U.S.?
00:27:18	>>Yes.
00:27:19	>>Are they abroad as well?
00:27:20	>>Haven't done abroad yet.
00:27:23	>>Ok. So you're not yet selling the international rights?
00:27:24	>>Yeah. They sell all over the world.
00:27:26	>>Ok. Well that's cool. The book again is Night Road
00:27:30	by Kristin Hannah. I thank you very much for being here
00:27:33	today on Writers Talk.
00:27:35	>>Thank you. It was great to be here.
00:27:37	>>And from The Center for the Study and the
00:27:38	Teaching of Writing at The Ohio State University,
00:27:39	this is Doug Dangler. Keep writing.

Note : Transcripts are compiled from uncorrected captions