Ten Terrifying Questions with Krystal Sutherland!

Krystal Sutherland grew up in Australia, directly across the road from the local public library, where she spent almost every day after school having adventures between the pages of books. Now her own novels for young adults have been published in more than twenty countries. She served as an executive producer on Chemical Hearts, the Amazon Studios film adaptation of her first book, which stars Lili Reinhart and Austin Abrams. The TV rights to her second novel, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares, were optioned by Yellow Bird US. Her third book, House of Hollow, is set for publication in 2021. She has lived in Sydney, San Francisco, Amsterdam and Hong Kong, but she currently calls London home.

Today, Krystal Sutherland is on the blog to answer our Ten Terrifying Questions. Read on!

1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?

I was born, raised and schooled in Townsville. I went to university in Sydney and have been living overseas since 2014 – first in Amsterdam, then Hong Kong, San Francisco and now London.

2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?

When I was twelve I wanted to be an actor. I think I watched the special features on a Charlie’s Angels DVD and it all looked so cool and so glamourous. Someone would pay you to learn martial arts and look hot? Yes please. By the time I was eighteen I wanted to be an extremely rich and famous author. Now that I’m thirty I want to be a moderately successful author – and maybe a screenwriter.

3. What strongly held belief did you have when you were younger that you do not have now?

I was terrified of the dark until I moved away from home for university. I genuinely and strongly believed in monsters and could not be alone in the dark, ever. My fear was quickly cured when I started having to pay my own rent and bills. I was twenty when I started sleeping without a light on and I haven’t looked back since.

4. What are three works of art – book or painting or piece of music, etc – that you can now say had a great effect on you and influenced your own development as a writer?

For House of Hollow in particular, three pieces of art come to mind: Peter Weir’s 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert and Gustave Doré’s 1883 depiction of Little Red Riding Hood, which I saved to my computer when I first saw it on tumblr over 10 years ago.

I saw Picnic at Hanging Rock when I was 10 or 11 and thought it was a true story. Thus began an obsessive week where I watched and re-watched the movie over and over again, looking for clues as to what happened to Miranda and the other girls. I’ve loved mysteries ever since.

Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood electrified me. Albert writes with thrilling intensity – her prose is like no one else’s – but her dark fairy tale slamming into our world is what really opened my eyes to the possibility of what YA could be. I feel like The Hazel Wood’s existence gave me permission to write House of Hollow.

Gustave Doré’s depiction of Little Red Riding Hood – in which the wolf circles the girl and you can only see its shadowed face in profile – is brimming with malice, but also something else. I’ve always found the image weirdly … seductive. When I look at it now, I see it as the supernatural brushing up against the normal. It’s dangerous but also captivating.

5. Considering the innumerable artistic avenues open to you, why did you choose to write a young adult novel?

I decided to become an author when I was, myself, a young adult. I started the first draft of my first (unpublished) manuscript when I was eighteen, so YA is what I was interested in reading and writing. Since then, the field has expanded and developed in so many interesting ways. It’s a field that really cares about diverse representation and inclusivity, about authentic voices, but it also pushes the bounds of form and genre. It’s a fun and ever-changing playground to write in.

6. Please tell us about your latest book …

House of Hollow is the story of three strange sisters – the Hollow sisters – who went through a mysterious and traumatic event when they were children. They disappeared for a month and then came back with no memory of where they had been or what had happened to them. They also came back slightly different – their hair and eyes changed colour, missing milk teeth grew back and they each had a small hook-shaped cut at the base of their throats. Ten years later, the youngest sister, Iris, is trying to finish high school and live a normal life – something that is difficult to do in the shadow of her older sisters, both of whom are famous, glamourous and wild. Then the eldest sister, Grey, goes missing again and Iris and her middle sister, Vivi, have to confront and unravel the mystery of what happened to them as children so they can find and save their sister.

7. What do you hope readers will take away with them after reading your book?

House of Hollow has always felt to me like an old, lost Grimm Brother’s fairy tale, so I’d love readers to feel like they’re rediscovering something they knew as a child but had forgotten. Also an appreciation for the intense bond between sisters.

8. Who do you most admire in the realm of writing and why?

Melissa Albert because her writing is so tactile and delicious. V. E. Schwab because she’s an absolute machine and consistently produces brilliant books.

9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?

Oh, you know, write and produce an adaptation of one of my books, be the creator and showrunner of a TV series, write my debut novel for adults (and a middle-grade debut while I’m at it, why not?). No biggie.

10. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

I have two pieces of advice: Keep showing up and finish what you start. Both sound easy in theory, but are much harder in practise. Stephen King has a great quote about being at your desk at the same time every day, so the muse knows where to find you. Don’t wait for inspiration to strike; writing is work and therefore needs to be worked on.

That ties in nicely to finishing what you start. I hit a wall about 80% of the way into every project where self-doubt begins to bleed in. At first I thought it was because I wasn’t a very good writer; now I know that every writer experiences this and the pros are just those who’ve learned how to push through it and continue on despite despising every word they type.

Thank you for playing!

—House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland (Penguin Books Australia) is out now.

House of Hollow

by Krystal Sutherland

Iris Hollow and her two older sisters are unquestionably strange. Ever since they disappeared on a suburban street in Scotland as children only to return a month a later with no memory of what happened to them, odd, eerie occurrences seem to follow in their wake. And they're changing. First, their dark hair turned white. Then, their blue eyes slowly turned black. People find them disturbingly intoxicating, unbearably beautiful and inexplicably dangerous.

Now, ten years later, seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow is doing all she can to fit in and graduate high school...

Order NowRead More

No comments Share:

About the Contributor

Booktopia