Hana Tooke was born in Holland and moved to England in the late 90s. A singer-songwriter since the age of twelve, she graduated from Plymouth University with a degree in music performance and wrote her first fairy tale for her bachelor thesis. She earned her master’s degree at Bath Spa University in Writing for Young People, resulting in her first novel for children, The Unadoptables [2020], set in Amsterdam in 1880. In her new children’s book, The Midnighters [2022], Hana tells another story set in the 19th century, this time in Prague.
How many ideas for potential works do you have in your head?
I always have many floating around in there, but I only ever focus on one at a time and let the others percolate for future use.
When working on a new project, how do you sift through competing ideas in order to move forward?
I don’t. I throw all my ideas for the story at the page, follow every little tangent, and write an incredibly messy first draft. I’m quite good at “killing my darlings”, so once I have all my ideas down, I just chop the ones that don’t work and expand on the ones that do.
What writing habit do you have that is impossible to shift? (That could be a particular snack, writing hours, location, caffeine consumption etc.)
I love writing to atmospheric sound effects and/or music. And I also create visual mood boards that fit the story I’m building. Visiting similar settings is also vital. I’m a very sensory-seeking person, so I need to find ways of bringing my stories alive to my senses in order to write them down.
The international literature festival berlin (ilb) has become an essential part of Berlin’s literary calendar. What do you connect with the city?
I have visited the very west of Germany, but never Berlin, even though I have always wanted to. I went to an international school in the Netherlands, and learned German from the age of four (my German is very rusty now though). I also have mostly Germanic heritage, so I’ve always felt a kindred connection to Germany.
What impact did the Covid-19 pandemic have on your writing and ways of working?
It slowed me down massively. I found it very hard to be creative under those circumstances, as did most other writers I know. That said, I learned a lot about myself as a writer in that time as it made me think harder about how I write and why I write. So I’ve come out of it with a new sense of purpose and determination.
