On how creative work transforms you

You tackle complicated and controversial topics in your young adult novels, such as the MeToo movement, abortion, and religious trauma. What motivates you to traverse these topics for teens?

It’s interesting because I get that a lot, that I write about controversial topics. I write about things that are very important to me and they just so happen to be controversial. I really just try to tackle what I think is important and what I want to say. It’s so funny being a writer and saying this, but sometimes I feel that it’s hard for me to articulate how something makes me feel, like when a certain law gets passed or something horrible happens, and I often find that I am able to really think about what my response to something is when I’m able to write about it. That doesn’t mean that everything that I write about gets published. Sometimes it really is just me writing or maybe even video journaling to dissect how it makes me feel.

Do you think even though you’re not putting all of your journals on the page, it makes you show up differently in your work?

It helps me think before I speak, because when I say something or when I write something and put it in the world, I want to make sure that I’m 100 percent behind it and I want to make sure that it’s thorough. With Truth Is, in particular, I was very scared about that book because I was so afraid of getting Truth Is wrong, especially because I think Roe v. Wade was, and is, such a trending topic. I was so afraid of saying something that was unintentionally offensive or that wasn’t 100 percent true. There’s always going to be room for people to misconstrue what you’re going to say, but I just wanted to make sure that in the event that somebody wants to clap back at me, I can clap back at them, because I’ve sat with this and I’ve sat with my thoughts and I can back up everything I write.

Tell me about the inspiration for Truth Is.

So I went to a conference, to a panel on James Baldwin, and there was a woman who said, “I wouldn’t be able to escape shit if I didn’t know how to love myself.” So, at that time, I knew that I wanted to write a pro-choice novel. I knew that I wanted to write about a girl who desperately wanted to escape her circumstances and wants more for herself. But when I heard that quote, it changed the course of the novel because I realized it was a lot less about her hating her circumstances, and more about her loving herself enough to want more for herself.

In the beginning of the book, she’s talking about how she hates her home life in Philly and with her mom. She doesn’t like school because she’s not very great at it. And it felt like dislike, dislike, dislike, hate, hate, hate. But as I was revising after I heard that quote, it really became more about, “this character loves herself and she’s struggling with her confidence, but at the end of the day, she is learning what it means to love yourself enough to want to have better for yourself.”

When I actually sat down to write this novel, I was so sure that the novel was going to take place a week after she got the abortion, and there was still going to be this plot line of the poem going viral. So it was still going to be a pro-choice book, but the decision was going to be made off the page. And then Roe v. Wade was overturned, and this was right before I proposed the novel so I had a sample. So I went back and wrote two different versions of the synopsis. I showed it to my agent and some friends, and everybody was like, “You are doing a disservice if you do not go with the version of this book with her making the decision on the page.”

Granted, Truth Is is a very thick book. But I am so happy that I went with that decision. Part of me wanted to make the abortion off the page because I was thinking of book banners. And I’m just very, very happy that I had people in my corner who were willing to knock some sense into me and remind me that I don’t write to appease book banners. Book banners are going to ban your books regardless.

You’ve also been candid about some of your personal experiences shaping your novels. In all of the novels you’ve written, how has this been empowering for you and how do you think your books have empowered teens?

I desperately hope that my books are empowering teens. I think this book honestly did heal a part of the younger version of me. So, Truth in the book is not the best student. She has a 2.4 GPA. I forgot whether I graduated or whether I entered my senior year with a 1.9 GPA. So I navigated most of my teen years just thinking I was very unintelligent. Writing Truth, writing a character who I genuinely rooted for and who learns that she is intelligent and learns that there’s more for her, I feel like the journey for Truth felt a lot more reflective, whereas I think Fighting Parts, I was actively trying to teach myself something.

What do you think you were trying to teach yourself in Fighting Parts?

I needed to teach myself that it was not my fault because when I was writing Fighting Parts, I was around 25 years old and I still had reasons upon reasons upon reasons about why what happened was my fault. I think you read all the articles, you go to all the support groups, you go to therapy, and you hear the words, “It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault.”

But it wasn’t until I wrote Fighting Parts that I really, honestly believed that. And I was able to say it, but I don’t think I believed it until I wrote about a teenage girl that I just felt so much love for, who was messy and a little loud like my teenage self, and who didn’t necessarily make the best decisions, but was so deserving of love and care and grace. While I was writing, I was like, “if I can love this character this much, I can definitely love me this much.” And that’s when things really changed for me with Fighting Parts.

That’s so beautiful. I don’t think you were using the book as a tool, but it became a tool for reflection and loving yourself and care.

1,000 percent. And then, with Truth Is, I wanted it to be a resource for young people. So when you’re reading, you’re going to know what a medication abortion is. You’re going to know what a judicial bypass is. You’re going to learn what the two medications are that make up what we call the abortion pill, all these things. I spoke to one medical doctor, Christine Brandy, and she was so kind. I called a random clinic in New Jersey, and I was like, “I’m writing this book. My main character travels to New Jersey to get an abortion. Can I please talk to someone?” And she set apart two hours of her day to talk to me. I spoke to a medical professional and a professor, another medical professional, and Professor Mafudia Suaray. So, I kept writing Truth Is knowing that this might be the first time that a young person is reading about that option.

The protagonist, Truth, is a poet. Walk me through your history with slam poetry, how it contributes to your writing now, and then how it contributed to your creation of Truth Is.

So, Truth Is is also for the slam kids. I was a BNV kid. I did slam poetry mostly in college. I was in the Baltimore City Youth Poetry team. Along with that, I did oratory competitions when I was in high school and written poetry competitions when I was in high school. So I always found a way to the stage, but I really wasn’t introduced to competitive spoken word poetry until I was in college. And that changed things for me because I would go up there with my little oratory voice and I’d be like, “Oh, this is the same, but it’s different.”

I’m so grateful for my experience on the Baltimore City Youth Poetry team. When I was writing Truth’s slam team, it was very important to me that they were an honest and genuine community for her, because that’s what my slam team is for me. And I’m still good friends with a lot of the people that I slammed with. I may not be slamming actively, but those are some of the people that I know if I was ever down bad, I could pick up the phone and they would answer my call.

In everything you write, you are focused on community in some ways. What do you think writing, especially being in the slam space, has taught you about community?

I have such a dicey relationship with community, and I find myself having to actively remind myself that there are people in my community that want the best for me and want to hear from me. I think a lot of that stems from my relationship with my former church and that being the first community that I was really a part of.

I also went through the MFA program, and there’s a huge difference between my community at my MFA program and my community through my slam team. My community at my MFA program really cared about Hannah, the writer, and sometimes they had great intentions, sometimes they didn’t. My slam community always cared about Hannah, the writer, and Hannah, the person. That’s really the biggest difference that I see. And that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people in those more academic or literary spaces that also care about Hannah, the person. But the slam community, we get there every week and we’re sharing these vulnerable pieces and we’re holding them, and we are literally watching each other go from being timid to being not afraid. There’s something about that experience that just makes you family.

Tell me about your teaching and how it shapes your work.

I would say that I think my writing affects my teaching, if anything. My writing reminds me of why I’m doing the work and makes me a little bit more prepared to do the work, especially writing about young people. I definitely feel like my writing is actually what opens me up, and maybe that’s because writing came first, but I definitely feel like my writing prepares me more for teaching than the opposite.

Speaking of teaching, how did the poetry prompts in Truth Is come about? Did that come about in the writing or was it afterward? The prompts are for the character, but also for the reader.

Honestly, that was a first draft thing. Truth Is is such a special book to me because all of the super cool things about it were very natural. For example, the book being told in three trimesters, that was from the very beginning. The poetry prompts, I’m 90 percent sure were there. I really just did things that I thought were cool and that I thought were kind of fun.

Novels in verse give us so much space to explore and play in ways that other forms do not. Tell me about your writing process for novels in verse. How do the poems come about?

I usually hear my character’s voice, and then I have to say the poem out loud, and then it makes sense to me, especially those opening pages. I hear my character’s voice clear as day. The opening pages of Truth were in the first draft. They were swapped a little bit, but those were the first pages I wrote for the novel. I do a lot of moving around and I also really love writing in public. There’s just something very comforting about being surrounded by people, even if they’re not here in the space to be with you, especially when you’re writing about topics that are a little bit more sensitive or emotional. I may not pace in public, but I do move and talk to myself and bop back and forth when I’m writing in public.

When you’re not on deadline or on a schedule, how do you refill and what does your writing look like in that space?

I do a lot of video journaling during that time. A lot of journaling by hand during that time, but also, I really love doing nothing. I really, really, really enjoy being on the couch and being in bed with a book or TV show. I enjoy having no schedule for the day if I can afford no schedule for the day. And the days that I can do that are definitely days when I’m not on deadline. When I get off of a deadline, there have to be a couple of days where I can do nothing otherwise that’s when I start to feel burnt out. If I have to hand in a manuscript and then the very next day I have this, this, this, and this to do, that’s when I burn out.

What advice do you have for writers who are venturing into YA or who are venturing into novels-in-verse?

Read a lot, and I know everybody says it, but it is incredibly important. And also, don’t be afraid to play. The book might change, the order might change, and I think that’s what’s so cool about novels in verse. You can always flip some stuff. You can always play, and I never want a novel in verse, for me, to feel boring or I’m not having fun because they’re such a fun format. So don’t forget to play.