Featured Interview With Georgine Hodgkinson
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am a writer and a teacher. I have also served as program coordinator for Re-Emerging Scholars, an academic program designed to support formerly incarcerated college students. The communication studies courses I teach shape the why and what of my writing. They also shape my author identity: I'm a memoirist fascinated with relationships. My writing explores family dynamics and human connection — with others and with ourselves.
Since 2020, I've split my time between California and Puerto Rico. As you probably guessed, I love warm weather and sunshine! This bi-coastal lifestyle was made possible by a pre-retirement program at my college — I teach in the fall and write from my home office in Puerto Rico each spring. There are other reasons I'm lucky enough to live in two beautiful locales, but you'll have to read Crypto Island to learn all the details!
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I've been obsessed with books for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I would hide myself away — under the bed or tucked into the bushes in the backyard — so I could read the next Nancy Drew mystery I'd checked out from the library, uninterrupted.
By fifth or sixth grade, writing was already an important part of my life. I poured my heart out on the page, each entry beginning with the same looping "Dear Diary" scroll. I was a committed journaler even then. I have a mountain of these diaries packed away in my garage — the kind little girls loved in the '70s — little notebooks that locked with a tiny key.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Mary Karr, hands down. She's inspired me on two fronts — her knowledge of craft and her skill as a writer. The Art of Memoir is one of my favorite books on writing, and her own memoirs, Liar's Club, Cherry, and Lit, exemplify everything she teaches. Beyond Karr, I admire so many memoirists: Lara Love Hardin, Glennon Doyle, Melissa Febos, Elizabeth Gilbert, Joyce Maynard, and Sue Monk Kidd have all written books that stayed with me — the list really does go on.
Favorite genre: Memoir, without question — I'll admit to a bit of an addiction. I love the range within the genre: addiction and recovery, coming-of-age, relationship, grief, travel, cultural. I'm drawn to varied forms too — epistolary, braided, hybrid. And while I appreciate humor in memoir, I'm most moved by a confessional tone.
What inspires me: I find a front-row seat to other people's experiences irresistible. I want to understand their motivations, desires, and obsessions, and to share in the messiness of life alongside them. What a well-crafted memoir teaches me, again and again, is that at our core, we're more alike than different — we all carry grief, shame, love, and joy. That common ground is what keeps pulling me back to the genre, both as a reader and a writer.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
It's a memoir — that probably won't surprise you! Specifically, it's about facing past mistakes and embracing second chances. Crypto Island is a reminder that personal growth never stops, and that living authentically often demands both resilience and reinvention.
I once saw a t-shirt that said, "Bad decisions make the best stories," and as a young person, I made plenty. Before I was a wife, mother, and college professor, I was a wild and rebellious teen who struggled with poverty and substance abuse. In Crypto Island, I weave those adolescent stories into a major life transition: relocating to Puerto Rico with my husband, Mark, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, we moved to the island under Act 20 & 22 — tax legislation that grants residency in exchange for tax breaks — and my first year there was an adventure. I met other transplants who'd relocated for the same reason, and got swept into Puerto Rico's thriving (and often outrageous) cryptocurrency community. But the island had more to teach me than crypto — I also found myself untangling the political complexities woven into Puerto Rico's history and identity, and reckoning with what it meant to call this place home.
That same year, I turned fifty, became an empty nester, missed my daughters more than I expected to, watched my teaching job go remote, and learned to trade crypto. Turns out there were plenty of midlife lessons hiding inside all of it.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles
Georgine Hodgkinson Facebook Page
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