Featured Interview With Hayley Barrett
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in the town of Ashburton – a farming town in the South Island of New Zealand, where I lived for the first eighteen years of my life. Once I finished high school, I moved to the city of Christchurch. I loved growing up in a small town and once my husband and I had children, we settled in a small town to bring them up. I now live only a forty-five minute drive from the town I was born – in Rolleston, about ten minutes south of Christchurch. I have three children (two boys and a girl), a birman cat called Tyler and a border collie dog called Lexi.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always loved reading. Always. I can’t wait until my daughter is old enough to read some of the books that meant so much to me as a teenager, books by the likes of Judy Blume and Cynthia Voight. Even now, I my favorite books are young adult books.
When I was in my first year at high school (about 13 years old), my teacher entered my short story into the school’s short story competition and to my immense surprise, I won. The following year, I also won. But apart from writing for school, and the occasional poem written for a favorite uncle, I never spent much time writing as a kid. It wasn’t until I read Sara Donati’s “Into the Wilderness” when I was in my early twenties that I decided I wanted to write a book. But even after I’d made that decision, it still took me another ten years to sit down and start writing.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Favorite authors…there are so many! Cassandra Clare, Suzanne Collins, Lauren Kate, Lauren Oliver, Holly Black, Sara Donati, Diana Gabaldon, Paullina Simons. I could go on, but I think that list gives a pretty good idea of what I like!
My favorite genre is probably science fiction/fantasy (usually young adult but not always), but I also love a really good historical fiction.
Sara Donati was my first inspiration and still is to some extent. If I can get so lost in a book that I don’t want to do anything except read, then I always finish the book feeling totally inspired (because that’s what I hope to achieve someday, to write something a reader doesn’t want to put down). Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series did this for me.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Into Darkness is a young adult dystopia set in my home country of New Zealand. The main character – Alexandra Spencer – has grown up in the wealthiest, most privileged family in her City, but is sentenced to a year in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. The prison stay itself is horrendous, but she also finds out that her powerful father has been keeping secrets about the people that inhabit their world, and about who Alexandra really is.
When I started writing Into Darkness, I never expected it to turn out quite the way it did – I didn’t expect to write something that would be classified as science fiction. But now I love writing this sort of work and don’t think I’ll ever be able to write a contemporary novel. Into Darkness took me two years to write – I’m hoping the sequel won’t take quite so long.
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