I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to interview Helena Fox, author of How It Feels to Float, by the amazing team over at Pan MacMilllan. This was such a privlage as I love interviewing authors and finding out why they decide to write the book, their favourite authors and books and whether they have any more books in the works or can give us a sneak peek of the next book in the series if the book is part of one. So thank you very much for this opportunity Pan MacMillan and see Helena Fox's answers to my questions below and if you want more information on the book check out my review in my previous post.
Q&A with Helena Fox
Congratulations on the release of your fabulous debut novel How It Feels To Float. How would you describe the book for those people who may not have heard of it yet?
Thank you! HOW IT FEELS TO FLOAT is about a sixteen-year-old girl called Biz, who is drifting through life, trying to figure out where she fits in high school and what her sexuality might be. She is also dealing with the loss of her father who, years after his death, still comes to visit her and tell her stories. When Biz’s father disappears again and she loses everything that held her together, Biz slips into a foggy space of profound grief and serious mental illness. She tries to recover, but her increasingly slippery hold on reality means she keeps floating away. Biz becomes convinced the only way forward is to find her father, and put his (and her) pieces back together.
This is a book about the debilitating effects of grief on mental health, and how it feels to live with loss, trauma and intergenerational mental illness. The story is also a hopeful one—about love and community and kindness, and how these good, true things can help keep you alive.
How It Feels to Float is a unique story that tackles some pretty hard hitting issues that a lot of people can properly identify with. What inspired you to write this amazing tale?
I live with mental illness and a difficult, painful history, and I have also been toppled by grief. I didn’t know I was going to eplore these issues until Biz arrived in my life. Biz: this odd, funny, smart, and tremendously vulnerable girl, stepped into my head years ago with the hook of her story—a dead father who visited her; a lost father she needed to find—and didn’t leave. Once Biz’s voice settled in, and I got to know her, I knew I wanted to tell her story while also weaving in my own, and I knew I very much wanted to help Biz and keep her safe.
With this book, I wanted to write with tremendous compassion about those living with mental illness—those who come undone and think of leaving, as well as those who aren’t able to stay. I also wanted to write about the people who offer love and empathy, comfort and hope,to those who are struggling. Biz is as dear to me as family. I hope her story gives hope to others, people of all ages, who have their own hard things to carry. I hope Biz’s story offers them some light.
Mental health and sexuality are two of the big topics discussed in the book. Do you think these need to be talked about more openly?
I think both topics need to become open conversations, so much so, that it becomes ordinaryto talk about them, and they ultimately stop being ‘topical’. We all carry our own uniquestories—every one of us lives on some spectrum of sexual identity; we all carry a history with hard parts in it; we all, at some point, have had or will have experiences that hurt or break us. So those living with mental health issues deserve to speak their stories as openly as someone who has fractured an arm, or been diagnosed with a physical illness. And those who identify as LGBT+ deserve to have their identity embraced, celebrated and supported, just as much as anyone who identifies as straight.
For so long, people living outside the ‘norm’ of heterosexuality, and the ‘norm’ of stable mental health, have had to carry a sense of otherness around with them, and live with the stigma that is attached to that otherness like a burr. I want everyone to feel safe and accepted, respected and understood. I want us to be able to shed any shame about living in ourOtherland—in fact, I want the parameters of ‘normal’ to disappear, and for ‘otherness’ to become ‘everyone is here’.
How it Feels to Float is so amazing do you have any other books in the works at the moment?
Thank you, so much! Like many writers, I have a number of manuscripts sitting in the ‘drawers’ of my computer, all in various states of ‘finished’! But the project I am currently working on is a new YA novel, which is taking up some lovely new brain space for me. I’ve begun walking with my main character through her neighbourhood, meeting her friends and family, finding out her history and her secrets. I’ve written 15,000 words so far, and I’m captivated. I’ve started to see the story I’ll be telling, and I can’t wait to get into it. I’m at that electric beginning of storytelling, where anything is possible. It’s a delicious feeling.
Finally who are you go to authors and what’s your favourite book?
Oh, where to start? I love authors who write with a strong narrative voice, in any form. I love authors who also bend and play with reality, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino, Jeannette Winterson, George Saunders, and Margo Lanagan. I love authors who experiment with story form and structure, like Max Porter and Salvador Plascencia, and I love poet-novelists like Anne Carson and Elizabeth Acevedo. I also know and have come to know many brilliant YA authors through this publishing journey and there are too many of them to mention; I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out!
My favourite book is another difficult question! I’ll have to offer up a few here: I adore, without reservation, Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan, and Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. Another much-loved recent discovery is Lenny’s Book of Everything, by Karen Foxlee—a completely beautiful, heartbreaking book. But my earliest, truest love, is, I think Watership Down, by Richard Adams. It was the first book to utterly captivate me, to the point that, when I stepped out of the story, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t a rabbit. I was nine years old. I think that experience was the real beginning of my journey as a writer.
About Helena Fox
Helena Fox lives in the seaside city of Wollongong, Australia, with her endlessly creative and kind family. She mentors and runs writing workshops for young people, and is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College in the U.S. Helena has travelled and lived all around the world, but of all her adventures, working with young people and helping them find and express their voice has brought her the greatest joy. How It Feels to Float is her debut novel.
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