One month ago, the WNBA-NYC and NYU’s Creative Writing Program hosted a panel entitled: Writing Across Genres. In this first part of a three part recap, learn what authors Hannah Tinti and Mira Jacob had to say. Harriet Shenkman served as moderator for the evening.
Hannah Tinti
Throughout her career Hannah Tinti has gone from writing short stories to novels, adult books to YA books, and historical novels to mysteries. When asked about these shifts, Hannah shared that they happened accidentally. For example, The Good Thief, Hannah’s debut novel was conceptualized and written as an adult book. But then, The Good Thief won an Alex Award (an ALA award for books targeting readers aged 12-18). This meant that the book was thereafter picked up by several schools and libraries specifically for the YA age range. This then changed how the book was marketed and ranked on reading lists. Given that the book included graphic violence, Hannah questioned this move at the time. However, the feedback she heard back was that as long as there was no sex and no swearing, there could be as much violence as she liked.
A similar thing happened in the case of her 2017 novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley. Intended as an adult, historical fiction novel, the book was nominated for an Edgar Award for Mystery Novels and was reclassified.
Her advice when it comes to writing? “Cross as many genres as possible,” in order to reach as many readers as possible.
Mira Jacob
Mira Jacob had a similar cross-genre experience when writing her latest book — a graphic novel/memoir. Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations was born when Mira’s son began asking her difficult questions about race and identity. Before the release of Leaving Neverland, he was lining up his albums and asked: “Is Michael Jackson white or black?”
Good Talk started off as an essay to answer his questions, but the outlet didn’t make sense to her. So, one day, while deciding how to explain things to him, without scaring him or lying to him, she took two pages of printer paper and made cut outs representing the both of them, and posed them on the MJ albums. She then stood on the dining room table and began taking pictures. That was the birth of the idea.
A $100,000 book proposal later, Mira realized that she needed to learn new skills in order to turn her proposal into an actual book. Though it may seem like this project was easier and that it had developed more organically than her previous book (a historical fiction novel), there was, Mira asserts, more of a learning curve. When she was working on her historical fiction novel, Mira already knew how to write. Whereas, she had to actively learn the art of digital drawing while creating Good Talk.
Coming Up Next…
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Thelonia Saunders is currently working as an Editorial Assistant at a Medical Publisher’s. She has various niche and occult interests, including Tarot, Apocalypses, and Werewolves, the latter of which was the subject of her honors thesis. She also enjoys knitting and watercolors.
