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WNDMG Author Interview with H.D. Hunter About New Novel Futureland

By on November 20, 2024   /   Articles, WNDMG  

 

Say hello to author H.D. Hunter! His book, Futureland: The Architect Games, was published on November 19, 2024, by Random House Books for Young Readers. This is the last book in the Futureland trilogy about the adventures of Cam Walker and a flying theme park created by his parents. Today we’re going to talk about his latest book, his revision process, and more, so let’s get into it!

 

       

Interview with H.D.:

SN: What was the process like collaborating with Cake Literary on Futureland? What drew you to the premise and was it like hammering out a plot and beats together, or did you get an outline and go away and do your thing?

HDH: Futureland is so complicated! What initially drew me to the premise was that the story seemed so fun. I wanted to write something fun and exciting for kids. The worldbuilding across Futureland feels boundless, the characters are many and varied, and we had to find a good way to plot a cohesive mystery in three parts across three different locations. But somehow, make it all flow together! Working with CAKE required a lot of sharing insights and opinions and many more rounds of revision than usual. Still, each book was different. By the time I was ready to draft The Architect Games, I was pretty much doing my own thing with outlining, plotting beats, genre-bending, and all that. But when we started, it was very much a lock-step collaborative process.

 

SN: You’re known as the fastest reviser, what’s that process like for you? How many drafts do you usually write, and how do you know when you’re done?

HDH: Haha! I look at revising as a system. I like to be super organized. So, I know what revisions I’m going to make on which round of reviewing the manuscripts. Sometimes I’ll go through just for character changes. Sometimes I’m just adding scenes. Other times I’m just removing them. Each round through has its own focus so I can keep my eye trained on one thing, and that helps me move swiftly. Revising is like nurturing a plant to me. The “fast” part is that you show up every day and make your deposit. You water and fertilize, and it feels like it takes forever, but eventually, your seed sprouts and the blooms come after that.

I usually will have between five and seven drafts, but I think I’m getting better—I’m needing lighter revisions from start to end on some of my newer projects. Personally, I love my work. I’m a little delusional in that I don’t hate my first drafts or really struggle with imposter system. And I really enjoy reading my writing. So, I know I’m “done” with a book when I get bored of reading it, haha. It’s like okay, it’s good, there’s nothing left to change, I’m not having fun polishing anymore. Must be time to publish!

 

SN: You’ve written across genres; what do you enjoy the most when writing for a middle-grade audience?

HDH: My favorite thing about writing middle grade is the comedy. No matter what sort of story you’re writing, there’s a whimsy that plays in middle grade, unlike any other category. I write about a lot of serious things—but when I’m writing in middle grade, I feel the freedom to be silly and fun, and it makes me excited that I can meet readers with that version of my writing.

 

SN: What was your a-ha moment when you knew, “Yes, I want to be a writer!”

HDH: I was in fourth grade! I had fallen in love with the poem Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe, and my teacher, Miss Green, explained to me what it meant to be an author. She told me I could write my ideas and stories and end up in somebody’s textbook one day, maybe even 100 years later, just like Edgar Allan Poe. That was all I needed to hear.

 

SN: Growing up, what was the book that made you become a reader and why?

HDH: According to my parents, I came out reading! I started to read very early, around age two, which was a big tip-off to my neurodivergence. I always had books in hand and I enjoyed horror, fantasy, and stories about history. I can’t really name just one book, but I was enthralled with things like Goosebumps and Louis Sachar’s Wayside series.

 

SN: You’ve self-published and you’ve had multiple books published traditionally, what advice would you give new writers who are deciding what route to take in getting their stories out in the world?

HDH: I would encourage writers to define success on their own terms. There are many ways to have an incredibly fulfilling career, whether you’re indie or traditional, and most authors I know aspire to do some sort of hybrid career. Prioritizing what’s important to you is a good first step. Do you care more about creative control or reach? Do you want an easier path to recognizable legitimacy, or are you more eager about building connections from the ground up? Both sides of my career have given me amazing experiences, and they truly aren’t interchangeable for me. So, have your cake and eat it, too! But which route you start with will likely be determined by what you imagine your ideal publishing experience to look like.

 

SN: People tend to romanticize the writing life. You’ve been a full-time writer since 2019; what was the most surprising aspect of writing full-time that you didn’t expect? What’s your writing routine like?

HDH: When I’m in project, I’m writing in hour-long sprints at least 4-6 times a day. I write mid-length novels, so I’m trying to get to a first draft of between sixty-five and seventy-five thousand words. If I can clock six thousand words in a day, I can finish up a first draft relatively quickly and then take my sweet time to revise and polish. This speed also helps me stay engaged with the piece, and not lose the pulse due to other life obligations or project fatigue. I have the privilege of writing full-time as a career—so this volume isn’t possible for everybody. But I think a daily writing practice, even if it’s only fifty words, can be good for anyone committed to finishing a project.

I think the most surprising part about taking on writing as a full-time career is how similar it is to any other full-time career. I didn’t escape the corporate world, or bureaucracy, or some of the other factors that can sometimes make business challenging. That was probably a bit naïve of me, but if I could do it all over, I’d just be a bit more intentional about preparing how to navigate a version of the corporate world where art is the main product, especially with so high a personal stake in my art.

 

SN: What’s next for you?

HDH: I’ve got a lot cooking! The Futureland series ends with The Architect Games in November 2024. I’m out on sub soon with a YA Fantasy. I’m drafting a YA apocalyptic-adventure-romance. My next scheduled release is in 2026; it’s a YA horror about Georgia’s very own haunted lake, Lake Lanier. Search for the lake on Tik-Tok or Google if you haven’t heard of it!

Book Recs

SN: Young black boys are an often overlooked/underserved demographic in publishing. Do you have a few middle-grade books you could recommend for them?

HDH: The Last Last-Day-of-Summer by Lamar Giles

Nothing Interesting Ever Happens to Ethan Fairmont by Nick Brooks

Alex Wise vs the End of the World by Terry J. Benton-Walker

Fun question:

SN: If you could have two superhero powers, what would they be?

HDH: Teleportation, easy. And I’d want to be able to speak every language known to existence.

 

Thank you H.D. for such a fun interview! Wishing you much success with your latest book!

About H.D. Hunter

Author H.D. Hunter

Hugh “H.D.” Hunter is a storyteller, teaching artist, and community organizer from Atlanta, Georgia. He’s the author of Torment: A Novella and Something Like Right, as well as the winner of several international indie book awards for multicultural fiction. You can find his work online in Porter House Review.

Hugh is also the author of the Futureland series, including Battle for the Park, which was named a Georgia Center for the Book 2023 Book All Young Georgians Should Read. Battle for the Park is also a 2024 selection for the CORE Excellence in Children’s Science Fiction Notable list. Futureland: The Nightmare Hour and Futureland: The Architect Games are the second and third books in the series.

Website: www.hughhdhunter.com

Instagram: @hdhunterbooks

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STEM Tuesday — Human Body– Writing Tips & Resources

By on November 19, 2024   /   Human Body, STEM Tuesday  

I am in constant awe of the human body. The sheer magnificence of what our bodies do every second of every minute of every day is remarkable.

Recently, neuroscientists at Princeton released a complete neural map of the fruit fly’s miniscule brain. This connectome showed all the connections and cell types in the brain giving insight into processing that can help understand the nuts and bolts of a neurological system. Since the fruit fly brain resembles the basic functionality of a human brain, but on a larger magnitude and complexity, knowing how the system works fundamentally will lead to discoveries toward treating human neurological diseases. 

(Side Note: The one fact that caught my attention in the Princeton research was their measurement of the total length of neuron wiring in the fruit fly brain. Although the size of a grain of sand, the fruit fly brain contains about 300 feet of wiring. That’s the size of an American football field! Mind blown!)

When you think of the human body, Newtonian physics is usually not the first thing that pops into your head. Or second. Or third. It’s probably somewhere in the hundreds or thousands on that list. Despite the tendency to dissociate physics from biology, we will wander down that path today to incorporate Sir Issac’s three laws of motion into this STEM Tuesday Writing Tips and Resources post. Please pardon my creative liberty in interchanging Newton’s physics body with the human body. 

Newton’s Three Laws of Motion

  • A body at rest remains at rest, and a body in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force.

A classic example of the first law of motion is to place a heavy steel ball on a flat surface or table. The ball remains static until it is pushed or the surface is titled. It then moves in a straight line until it falls off the table and lands on your big toe. Then it stops.

The first law also applies to the creative life. For the ideas bouncing around our brain’s connectome to exist, we have to make them exist. Just like the way our bodies feel and work better when we move them, i.e. exercise, the creative object needs to be in action. A creator has to apply a force instead of waiting for the heavy steel ball of an idea to move on its own. 

  • One has to write to write. 
  • One has to draw to draw. 

Simple creative physics I believe Newton would approve of.

  • The acceleration of a body depends on the mass of the object and the amount of force applied. 

As creators, we understand the power of creative momentum. When we are in that zone, we are cooking on our projects. The amount of force moves the mass of the object forward. However, when the words come hard and the mass overcomes the level of force we can generate 

The struggle is real. 

What can we do? I often fall back on my training as an athlete/strength coach and throughout my 35+ year research microbiology career and look to the Fail Cycle for guidance. 

  • Try something new or hard and fail. 
  • Step back and do the work to improve. 
  • Attempt the challenge again. 
  • Repeat until the challenge is overcome. 
  • Set a new goal.

The Fail Cycle philosophy provides a plan of attack. It allows for hope when it seems our creative path is blocked. Trying, failing, improving, and trying again is the tilt for our creativity table to get the heavy, steel ball of creativity rolling.

  • Whenever one body exerts a force on another body, the second body exerts an equal and opposite on the first.

Creative people have lives. Lives can, and often do, get in the way of creative work. If we have our heavy, steel ball rolling comfortably along, that second object exerts its opposing force. Life gets in the way. Sometimes we even get in our own way. No matter what the source, something inevitably affects the flow.

What can we do? Go with the flow!

Accept the fact these opposing forces are part of the game. Instead of coming to a halt, look at them as a redirect and redirect your energies accordingly. It’s not the easiest thing to do. 

I fall back on a 1980-ish interview with the great Ray Bradbury that showed him in his office surrounded by desks on three sides, each with a typewriter. He told the interviewer he always has multiple writing projects on each typewriter station. When he ran into a dead end on one project, he rolled his office chair to another typewriter and worked on the next project. He said his mind had been working on the other projects as they sat there, so his creative mind was ready to roll when he rolled to the previously abandoned project.

He redirected his creative energy to adjust to the opposing force. 

When that heavy steel ball falls off the table directly over your big toe, move your foot out of the way and follow where it rolls. 

I think Ray Bradbury and Issac Newton would have hit it off fairly well, don’t you?

Good luck! Keep creating and doing what you do. Now, more than ever, the world needs you and your work!

Thank you for reading!

 

Bokkyu Kim at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal-opportunity sports enthusiast, that is. If they keep a score, he’ll either watch it, play it, or coach it. A molecular microbiologist by day, middle-grade author, sports coach, and general good citizen by night, he blogs about sports/life/training-related topics at www.coachhays.com and writer stuff at www.mikehaysbooks.com. Two of his science essays, The Science of Jurassic Park and Zombie Microbiology 101,  are included in the Putting the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books. He can be found roaming Bluesky under the guise of @mikehays64.bsky.social and @MikeHays64 on Instagram.

 

The O.O.L.F Files

This month on the Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files focus on the human body from the perspective of Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. 

What Are Newton’s Laws of Motion? Newton’s First, Second and Third Laws of Motion? (via ThoughtCo.com)

Mapping an entire (fly) brain: A step toward understanding diseases of the human brain (Princeton News)

Physiopedia: Introduction to Human Biomechanics – External Forces

     The basics of how the human body moves with a correlation to Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion.

Innerbody Anatomy Explorer

It’s a pretty cool site to explore twelve major anatomy systems.

Skeletal System

 

 

 

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Telling Immigrant Stories Through Verse Novels

By on November 18, 2024   /   Book Lists, Fiction  

Did you know that novels in verse have super powers?

  • These stories, told in lyrical narratives, are immersive.
  • They appeal to young readers looking for shorter books.
  • The visual qualities of the text on the page often evoke the meaning of the words.
  • Many novels in verse have won literary awards.

Using blank space, line breaks, shapes and inventive forms, authors give readers x-ray vision straight into the hearts and minds of their characters.

Now, more than ever, is a good time to empathize with immigrant characters.

Novels in verse have a super power. Author use of blank space, line breaks, shapes and inventive forms give readers x-ray vision straight into the heart and mind of their characters.

Check out these recent stories about young immigrants who are faced with typical middle school challenges such as crushes, friendship, fitting in, and bullying while trying to belong in a country where they are not always made to feel welcome. The main characters in these novels also face the difficulties (and joys) of living between two cultures. The lens of lyrical language allows readers to understand and empathize with an immigrant character.

Call Me Adnan by Reem Faruqui

Ping pong is Adnan’s passion. After many exciting matches, he and his family go to Florida for his championship where a tragedy occurs. This story portrays how one boy’s loving Pakistani Muslim family deals with grief.

 

 

 

When Clouds Touch Us by Thanhha Lai

In this sequel to the award winning Inside Out and Back Again, Vietnamese-American Ha and her family are moving again – from Texas to Alabama. Ha is determined to make money to help her family out. She shows resilience and humor as she tries to make new friends and is confronted with prejudice.

 

 

 

 

Aniana del Mar Jumps In by Jaminne Mendez

Dominican American Aniana is at home in the water, but her mother, whose brother drowned during a hurricane, forbids her to be a part of the swim team. Ani sneaks off to swim practices, with the help of her dad, until she is prevented by her stiff swollen joints. Mendez’s poems describe Ani’s journey with her chronic illness and the growing understanding of her family.

 

 

 

 

 

I Am Kavi by Thushanthi Ponweera

Kavi worked hard for the scholarship that takes her out of her poverty stricken village and into  a fancy school in the city. It’s 1998 and this young Sri Lankan girl is affected by the country’s Civil War. She’s also at war within herself trying to fit in at her school, decide between right and wrong and discover where she belongs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isabel in Bloom by Mae Respico

Moving from the Philippines to California isn’t easy for Isabel. She has to make new friends in a new country and she has to get to know her mother all over again since they have lived separately for years. Her grandmother and her green thumb come to the rescue. The special garden project creates builds a community where she belongs.

 

 

 

 

Kareem in Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi.

The story of how Kareem, a football-loving Syrian American stuck between two cultures, is riveting and poetic. This boy is desperate to make the team and new friends. When the QB makes a proposition, Kareem has to decide between right and

wrong. His family problems revolve around trying to get his very ill grandfather out of Syria during the 2017 Muslim Ban.

 

 

You also won’t want to miss these award winning novels in verse, written prior to 2023.

Red White and Whole by Rajani La Rocca

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhhan Lai

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga.

 

Jen Kraar grew up chasing lizards in India, making up stories about the residents of the spirit houses in Thailand, and riding retired racehorses in Singapore. Jen explores themes of finding home in the middle grade novels and picture books she writes. As a manager at Pittsburgh’s beloved City of Asylum Bookstore, she builds a diverse collection of books and talks about kid lit with customers young and old.

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