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KidLit Interview!

8/18/2015

7 Comments

 
Picture

Olivia Hinebaugh


Picture Photo credit: Shoot Photo Inc.
How do you juggle being a stay-at-home mom and a writer serious about her craft?

Well, in some ways I always feel like I'm failing at something. Some days I don't write. Some days my kids watch TV. And most days, my house is a mess. But I do place a lot of priority on writing time. It helps keep me sane. If I've gotten a good writing flow going, I never feel awful about the day.

How does your hubby support you in your writing endeavors?

First of all, he takes my dreams seriously. It's always been a matter of "when" with him, not "if." But obviously, I need his help to write. He watches the kids. He forgives me when he walks through the door and I'm at the computer and only realize then that I should have made dinner. And he reads my stuff and tells me I'm awesome. 

When did you first decide you wanted to write for young adults?

I think that writing for young adults is a product of the fact that I started writing when I was a young adult. I wrote for teenage-me and I still do. I took a break and studied playwriting and screenwriting in college. When I took my first stab at a novel, my critique partner was the one to point out that it was young adult. Then I started reading young adult voraciously and fell in love with it!

How do your kids feel about mommy being a writer?

Well, my daughter is still a little young to totally get what I'm doing. (She just turned two.) But she has sat down at the keyboard and mashed at it and informed me she was "working." A proud moment was when my son (who is turning five next month) answered a survey about me for mother's day and when he was asked what I did as a job he said "writing" and when he was asked what I like to do, he said "writing." He wants me to write books he can read. So I've started doing just that. I will say, one of the joys with my son is that he writes books too. He dictates them, we print them out and he illustrates them. I love fostering his imagination.

Do you have any writing friends who are also stay-at-home moms? If so, how do you support each other as writer-moms?

Yes! Thank god! My critique partner and dear friend is also a write-at-home-mom. She's the one who encouraged me to take a stab at writing a book. I was sort of bored being a stay-at-home-mom; I needed some mental stimulation. It was easy enough to do while my son played. And pretty soon, the two of us would get together a few times a week. Our kids are the same ages so they play while we work, or talk publishing, or gossip. It's basically the ideal situation.
Olivia Hinebaugh is a write-at-home-mom with a five-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl. Along with parenting articles, she writes young adult novels. This means a) she writes whenever the kids are sleeping and b) her house is often messy. Some people can do it all. Olivia is not one of those people. Recently she's been writing about: hippies, a teen midwife, a theater prodigy, and night club D.J.s. She's on the fence about the Oxford comma. (Put down your pitchfork!) Olivia can be found online at oliviahinebaugh.com and Tweeting at @OliveJuiceLots. 


7 Comments
Dionna
8/17/2015 06:54:12 pm

Greetings, Olivia! Thanks for coming to the party! This word-picture is total sweetness. "...one of the joys with my son is that he writes books too. He dictates them, we print them out and he illustrates them. I love fostering his imagination."

Reply
Olivia Hinebaugh
8/18/2015 03:36:28 am

Thanks so much for the interview, Dionna! It's been great getting to know my agency siblings! xx

Reply
Dionna
8/17/2015 07:00:04 pm

Nice to "meet" you Rachel. Camping on the beach of Australia sounds like a memory maker, for sure! I really like what you said here: "I think all characters often embody parts of you, whether it's flaws or physical features or memories or emotions. Some part of you has to go into a work of art."

Reply
Pamela Ehrenberg link
8/18/2015 01:07:56 pm

I've so loved reading all of these interviews this week!

Olivia, your note about your writing friend reminded me that when my daughter was two, I had two other stay-at-home-mom/writing friends who would sometimes divide a one-hour playdate such that each of us could have 20 minutes to sneak off and write. It was astonishing to learn what could be accomplished in 20 minutes when someone else was watching my rambunctious 2-year-old to allow the gift of writing time--and it cured me of thinking I needed hours of uninterrupted writing time under "ideal" conditions. (The construction scene in _Tillmon County Fire_ was drafted on a particularly noisy, tractor-filled day outside my friends' apartment building.)

So great to read about the writing journeys of the other members of #TeamHowland...I am feeling humbled and honored that our paths have all intersected in this way, and grateful to Dionna for bringing these stories to light!

Reply
Dionna
8/19/2015 11:01:04 pm

The sharing has inspired me, too!

Reply
Kathleen Kellett link
8/19/2015 11:30:51 pm

Olivia, all of the recent topics of your stories in your bio are so enticing. Can't wait to read them one day! And Rachel, it's great to learn more about you since my days in Boston, hahaha. Someday we'll both be able to say we knew each other when. :)

Reply
Liza link
8/20/2015 07:21:41 am

I'm really enjoying getting to know everyone through your interviews! Olivia's relationship with her family is so special. The pride her son has in her writing made me smile! And I had no idea Rachel had traveled so much! So cool! Thanks so much for sharing!!!!

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    About Me

    Dionna is a spinner of children's yarns, a weaver of nonfiction, and a forever-learner enrolled in the Institute of Imaginative Thinking. Her kidlit work has appeared on the pages of  Cricket, Spider, and Ladybug. As a work-for-hire author, she's written projects for Scholastic, Lerner, Capstone, Little, Brown and other educational publishers. Her middle-grade, MAMA'S CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS, will be released by Holiday House come 2024. An SCBWI member since 2005, Dionna is represented by ​Kelly Dyksterhouse and 
    Jacqui Lipton of The Tobias Literary Agency.


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