Author Interview: Carrie Ryan

I am thrilled to be featuring Carrie Ryan and her astonishing debut novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth. If you have not had a chance to read this novel, head to your bookstore and pick up a copy. So without further ado…. I present Carrie Ryan.

What inspired you to write your first book?
I’d decided in high school that I wanted to write a book but thought I was too young. A few years later I was about to graduate from college when I realized I wasn’t too young anymore and so I opened up a new document and began to type!

Where do you get your information or ideas for your books?
Once I had the vague idea about the world of The Forest of Hands and Teeth I really became fascinated in how we tell stories and pass down ideas. I wanted to explore what we remember about what came before us and what stories we chose to tell to pass information on.

How did you come up with the titles?
I wish I could take full credit for the titles, but my fiancé, JP, helped me out with them. I was actually never planning on calling the first book The Forest of Hands and Teeth – I just needed something to save the file as and it stuck!

What are your current projects and can you share a little of your current work with us?
Right now I’m working on revisions for The Dead-Tossed Waves which is the companion/sequel to The Forest of Hands and Teeth and will be coming out in Spring 2010. I can’t share any writing right now because who knows what will survive the revisions process (and don’t want to spoil anything) but I can say that it’s told from a different POV and starts after the end of The Forest of Hands and Teeth. There will also be a third book in the series coming out in Spring 2011.

I bawled like a baby reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth it’s such an amazing story, what was the hardest part of writing your book?
Actually, the hardest part to write is in the very beginning. Mary, the main character, puts her head on her mother’s lap and her mother strokes her hair. Mary knows that her mother could be about to die and this was just so painful for me to think about. I’ve spent countless hours talking to my mom as she played with my hair and I just couldn’t imagine anything bad happening to her. There were other parts of the book that were hard to write, but that was the most personal to me.

If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
Haha, I was reading through a section last night to look up something for the second book. I’m sure there are things I’d change if I could but that’s also part of the process! I just try to learn and move on :)

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
I think that’s one of the best parts of reading – coming to your own conclusion about what a book says. I have some things that I hope readers will get out of my book but I’m always so afraid to say what they are and influence the way someone reads.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Just a massive thanks for reading my book! It’s still so surreal!!


Thanks, Carrie!

For more information about Carrie and The Forest of Hands and Teeth, please check out her website.