Hannah Voskuil
Hannah Voskuil received a B.A. from Middlebury College in Vermont and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Emerson College in Boston. She is also the author of Horus and the Curse of Everlasting Regret. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies and textbooks around the world. She lives in New England with her husband and two children, in a house with books in virtually every room.
Interview
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
I can’t name a favorite—there are too many—but I can name the most terrifying! John Bellairs’ The Letter, The Witch, and The Ring scared me for weeks after I finished reading it.
What’s your favorite line from a book?
As a family, we have been listening to (and enjoying!) The Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan. We’ve noticed a certain phrase coming up often, which of course is only noticeable because we’re listening to the audiobooks all in a row. Now whenever the narrator says the phrase “several times,” we all shout in chorus, “SEVERAL TIMES!” It’s . . . pretty fun.
Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?
This is an impossible question! I’ll narrow it down to “books featuring magic,” and then I’ll name three terrific books for grown-ups and three for middle grade readers.
For adults: Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, and Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver.
For middle grade readers: Where The Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin, Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty, and Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz.Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?
Like a great many people, I simply love books and reading. Books can provide all kinds of things: information, insight, escape, entertainment, inspiration. I think a world without them would be fairly bleak!
Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?
Keep reading. Keep writing. Keep drawing. The writers I know who have published books are the ones that never gave up.
