Interview with Sara Hosey

• What’s your favorite thing you have written?

I’m pretty excited about Dirty Suburbia, my debut “literary fiction” for adults. I have three young adult novels already out in the world, and I love those books, too, but I am very proud of this collection.

• What’s your favorite thing that someone else has written?

Right now, my favorite short story is Kelly Fordon’s “Superman at Hogback Ridge,” which is in her collection, I Have the Answer.  It’s basically a perfect story: funny, poignant, and surprising in a satisfying way. When I teach creative writing, I sometimes use the first few paragraphs as an example of a strong opening: it starts with a tense situation before panning out to provide some context. The first time I read it, I was hooked. 

Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” makes me cry every time I read it. Ask my students. Or maybe don’t.

I also really love Claire Vaye Watkins’ novel I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness. I read it a couple of months ago, and I’m still thinking about it. There’s a great scene in there where the protagonist (Claire) is supposed to do an author event at a high school, and she’s sort of a wreck—she’s been up all night, and she has two friends with her, and she’s a bit disheveled—and she asks the students to all lie down on the floor of the gymnasium and when they finally comply, she puts on the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds.”I loved this. I kind of feel like this is simply a good life strategy. Put on “Pet Sounds.”

• What are you working on writing now?

I am revising a novel about the relationship between an older woman who is leaning pretty hard into the cat-lady thing and her niece, who is a fitness influencer on the run from an abusive boyfriend. The story started out as a novella that was published several years ago, which I really enjoyed writing. I kept thinking about it after it came out, and I realized I had more I needed to explore with these characters and with this story and so I returned to it.

• Do you have a favorite food or drink that helps you write?

I’m a big coffee drinker, but even if I wasn’t, I am a firm believer in taking breaks, getting up and walking around, and I generally wind up visiting the kitchen. If there are cookies in the house, well, they won’t be for long because I’ll eat them up. I don’t know if they help me write, but they’re a nice reward.

• What’s your favorite kind of music?

I prefer achingly sad songs performed by the despairing and melancholy, and a lot of what I like best is from the 90s and early aughts, like Radiohead and Cat Power and Palace/Will Oldham. I do like more recent stuff, too, and there are a couple of songs by Big Thief, Lana Del Rey, and Bad Bunny that I listen to over and over again.

• Forest, country, beach, or city?

Forest. I’m a tree enthusiast, and I spend as much time as possible forest bathing in upstate New York.

• What movie can you watch over and over again?

I like this question, in part because there’s a short story titled “Back to the Beach” in Dirty Suburbia. In the story, a character watches the 1987 movie Back to the Beach several times, back-to-back. This was something I did, too, when I was a tween. My friend Cynthia and I watched it together, and we knew every line.

Then, I came back to that movie in my twenties and watched it with my friends Jen and Jason. And then, in my 30s, I inflicted it on my partner, Jess.

These days, I have no patience, attention, or integrity, and I can hardly watch anything for more than five minutes. But I think I could make it through Back to the Beach again.

• What would you like people to know about being an Indie author?

You can’t count on making money, but you have the freedom to do what you want. I made the switch from young adult to literary fiction because that is what I was called to do, and I didn’t feel like I owed it to anyone to keep writing in a certain genre. Of course, an entrepreneurial person might be more strategic in how she approaches her writing career, but for me, I appreciate being able to follow my interests, and I’ve felt supported in those endeavors by smaller publishers willing to take chances—and to give my work the attention that I think it merits.

• When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I did want to write, but I also thought I wanted to be a veterinarian, which I one hundred percent would never want to do now, as not only am I incredibly squeamish, but I also am not as animal-obsessed as I think child Sara believed I would continue to be. Don’t get me wrong, I love my pets. I’m just not as passionate about all of animal kind as I was from ages 5 to 15 or so.

• What does the writing process look like for you?

My biggest frustration is that I have so many ideas and not enough time to pursue them all. In order to not get overwhelmed, I keep a writing schedule. In general, I am not an organized person, so making lists and keeping calendars allows me to make sure I am doing the things I actually want and need to be doing.

What this looks like is a calendar that tells me what projects I am currently working on and what I’ll be working on in the coming weeks. I am not inflexible; I have to change the calendar a lot. But having it written down and made visible seems to take some pressure off—like, I know I’m dying to get to that short story idea, but I will, in February, after I’ve finished the edits I’m doing on my novel.

Each project is different. For novel-length work, I try to sketch out a rough outline. For short stories, I usually start with an idea, and then I try to write it all the way through before making any big changes. Once I have a rough draft of something, I move away from it for a few weeks and then come back, ready to dig into revision. 

• What about writing do you enjoy the most?

Though it doesn’t happen all the time, there are some wonderful days and hours when I am at home in a story, absorbed in what I am creating and happy with how it is going. It’s the pleasure of these moments that keeps me writing even when it isn’t going well or smoothly and I’m feeling frustrated and defeated.

• What is the most challenging part of writing for you?

It can be hard not to worry about readers and how they will receive your work. I am talking about both form and content. In terms of form, it becomes difficult to take chances and trust yourself if you are afraid that others will say you’re a crappy writer. And in terms of content, it can be hard to trust the plot and characters if you worry about how your writing will be interpreted or misinterpreted.

• How have you grown as a writer?

I’m still learning how to turn off that voice that worries about what other people would or will say. There’s a short story in Dirty Suburbia titled “Not for Everyone,” and that’s sort of my approach these days: my stories are not for everyone. There are a lot of people who may not “get” them or may dislike what I’m doing. But they are for someone or several someones. And I’m comfortable with that.