Hello and good morning, Hannah. How are you doing today. I'm doing
great. Thank you man. I'll tell you what. I am so proud
of you in writing this book. And the reason why is because there are
so many authors out here now, authors as well as artists that are out
here that hide, and especially when it comes to becoming a physical artist on
a canvas, we hide. And it's books like this that give, you
know, the serve it as an invitation. Oh, I love that.
Thank you so much. What what went into this? Are you? Are
you that artist that that that that you're talking about in this book. Yes,
in many ways, I am. I think Seina is grappling with many
of the things that I'm thinking about all the time, especially as I think,
you know, I'm delving more and more into this world of being a
creative person and a writer and being more published. It's that a tricky balance
between being public facing versus wanting to be hold up in my in my house,
just writing stories and navigating that that relationship with social media and thinking about
the impact that you know that immediate contact with with your audience might have on
your own creative process and what you do and what you how you evaluate yourself
and your value has a lot to take it. I'm glad you said creative
person, because the thing about it is is that so many times creative people
only want to do one thing, and that's not how we really work.
I mean, there's a lot of things going on in there at all times,
and you've got to learn to turn it all a free yeah. Yeah.
And I think a lot of people, you know, I know a
lot of writers. You know, we commiserate about how we never realized how
much how many other aspects there are to being a children's bolser, for example,
the marketing and the publicity side and the business aspect of it. And
you know, you think it's just writing, but it's much more than that,
Yeah, Because I mean it's one of those things where I think writing
is also the voice of the of the the person that's putting things on a
canvas. It could be you know, writing is is the songwriter, and
so to me, it's just one of the voices that are constantly moving through
each and every one of us. Absolutely, yeah, And there's so many
different ways to express yourself and that was something that I wanted to highlighten this
book as well. Even though I'm not an amazing visual artist. You know
those people who are painting these canvasses and these murals that you know, they're
also expressing themselves in very intimate ways and putting themselves out there. Dina is
so real in the way that you deal with anxiety in this and that just
I love that because that needs to be something that needs to be in books
so that young adults can sit there and say I'm not alone. Yeah,
yeah, that was my thought, and that's why you know, her anxiety
is something that presents you know, early in the book when she discovers a
crack tooth at the dentist, and then you know, gradually we see other
signs of it when she's experiencing stomach aches and nausea. But it's slow build,
and she herself isn't quite aware of what she's confronting. You know,
a lot of us dismiss the signs of anxiety, especially in because they're so
easy to confuse with other things, and it's also easy to sometimes think that,
you know, oh, I don't have anything to be stressed abalue,
you know, why would I have anxiety or why would my kid have anxiety?
So it is something that sort of takes time to reveal itself to her
and standing up against the bullies. Oh. I had to deal with that
when I was a kid and I didn't do well. And to this day,
I still hold myself responsible for my reactions of trying to just walk away.
Yeah. Yeah, And luckily, you know, in this book,
Dita doesn't have to confront real life bullies like so many of us had to
and still have to. But you know, it's more that that hidden bully
that we we've also met on social media, who you know, can hide
behind an amidity and just be nasty. And that's something that we're seeing more
and more unfortunately, kids having to deal with and figure out how to navigate.
Oh and how about bullying ourselves. I mean, we're not nice to
ourselves half the time. No, no, and social media makes that harder,
right when when we compare, I know I can't help it. I
can't beare myself to others, even though I know how unhealthy it is.
But I feel bad for myself when when I see certain things, I know
I probably do the same thing to others. So it's really tricky. The
great thing about this story is we need it right now, and the reason
why is because it's about an immigrant family and we need this because we need
the readers to say, Okay, this is my identity, this is my
family, this is what I'm living with today. Thank you for this book.
Oh thank you? Yeah, I mean for me, you know,
as a child of immigrants. It's something that's really close to my heart and
important to me. I think there's so many aspects of immigrant families that's,
you know, really important to highlight, things like immigrant children of immigrants having
to perhaps advocate for themselves a bit more than other kids. But also the
idea that, you know, immigrant families are every family too, you know,
the relationship, the mother daughter dynamic, the idea that the people you
think you know best in the world sometimes surprise you and we're all capable of
evolving and growing, you know, no matter no matter what our families look
like. One of the things that you deal with in this in this book,
which is called drawing, Dina and I think that all artists do it,
but you feel like you're the only one on the planet, and that
is when you start questioning your art and to me, that's part of the
personal growth. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree, and that you know,
That was something that was really really meaningful for me to get to explore
because you know, Dina is this huge fan of Vince in Bango like many
of us, and you know, she's adoring his art as she's trying to
find her own, you know, style and way to express herself, but
she's also thinking about this relationship with audience and how in his case, you
know, he didn't even sell much in his lifetime and never knew what a
huge impact he was going to have on the world. And what does it
mean and how does it shape us when we have that instant contact with the
world and instant feedback, and what does that do to us in our creative
process, and how does it even just the time it takes, you know,
for us to jajo's social media and the time it takes away from us
perhaps creating our next masterpiece. So all of those things are really important to
think about as creators of any type of art. I can't imagine for today's
up and coming artists as well as writers, what they're having to deal with
when we talk about social media, because I didn't have that as a kid.
I mean, that didn't happen until the nineteen nineties. For me,
and so I mean, I can't imagine you know, when you do display
your art. Julia Cameron taught us that, hey, look, learn to
display your art so you can learn how to ignore criticism. But look,
I mean, but to display it on the internet and on social media.
Man, that's going to be a scary world for young adults. Yeah.
Absolutely. And you know, this idea of being moved by likes, you
know, what does that do? Does that make you want to create more
of the same, you know, to imitate others or do whatever it takes
to chase the dream of going viral, because we do start to measure our
own value by those little thumbs upsids or those arts. And also what does
it mean you know, the viral mean good? Does popular mean good?
And what is the difference? And those are all things that we have to
have to think about and we could think about in a vacuum, like you
said earlier, but now it's very difficult to do that. You really do
a great job in explaining the underlying story here, that it's from the it's
about a Muslim child. And because a lot of people only you know,
hear what their parents are saying or read whatever they're getting on social media.
I love how important it is to you as the writer to bring this to
readers. Oh, thank you, Yeah, I mean that is you know,
that's my identity as a Pakistani American Muslim child of immigrants, I share
the same identity as my character. And you know, for me, it's
really important for people who maybe don't have a chance to get to know a
family like mine, to get to know one through Dina and see that,
you know, the families are very very similar to others, and you might
see a lot of yourself in Dina and her family and her and her community.
So you know, that's that's really always been my goal to show those
universal values and those universal truths that we all share. Speaking of seeing yourself,
what did you learn from this book? Because even even though you're the
writer, you still have to be the student. Oh, always, always,
And I think you know, as a writer, you know, we're
evolving and we're like learning how to be better at certain things in this In
this book, I was really paying attention to pacing and you know, the
traditional story arc versus what this book is, which is you know, a
little a little different. So I was like, am I doing this night,
Well, you know, is this going to turn out okay? And
so it's fun to push yourself and challenge yourself and grow as a writer.
And of you know, someone trying to say you talk about that pacing,
I mean that right there in itself. I mean, that's that's going to
be colon semi colon's and commas and and and you know, do I do
I have a run on sentence? I mean, what did you have to
face that with your editor? Not so much as as just you know,
am I moving the story in the way I want? You know, I
kept chapters short in this in this book deliberately. I think it keeps readers
engaged, especially reluctant readers who might you know, really need that satisfaction of
finishing a chapter. I made it easier. And the books, you know,
not a huge tome. It's it's you know, medium lengths. So
I think all of those things are important to me because I want, I
want to keep people engaged in what is called a quiet story. You know,
it's not like filled with action or adventure, but there's a lot going
on, and I want readers to feel invested and motivated to keep reading and
to wonder what happens next? Oh my god, you speak my street when
you say there's shorter chapters, because my entire life, it's it's all been
based on Hey, I want to read a short chapter so I can have
a victory, because I mean inside my mind and body and soul, you
know, getting to the end of a chapter. That's a that's a big
thing for me. Yeah, exactly. And I think you know, as
we all know, it's harder and harder to take focus these days and to
keep people attention. Yeah. Yeah, So where can people go to find
out more about this book as well us more about you because I want them
to love you and support you and just give you lots of attention. Well,
thank you, I would love that too. You can find me online.
I have a website hennahon dot com where you can learn all about my
books, more about me, see goofy pictures of me as chyles, and
you can you can reach out to me as well. I have a contact
me form. I do lots of school visits, so you can arrange one
through there as well. And you can also connect with me on social media.
I want to. I do still have that complicated relationship with it.
You can find me at Hannathan Books. I love it. Please come back
to the show anytime in the future. The door is always going to be
open for you. Oh, thank you so much. Such a pleasure.
You'd be brilliant today. Okay, thank you, you dude.