Each day leading up to the 32nd annual Minnesota Book Awards announcement, we’ll be featuring an exclusive interview with one of our 36 finalists.
Interview with H. M. Bouwman, author of A Tear in the Ocean, part of the Middle Grade Literature category, sponsored by Education Minnesota
How does it feel to be a Minnesota Book Award finalist?
I’m truly surprised, given how many wonderful and deserving books were nominated. And I’m so happy to be on a list with Kate Allen, Becca Ansari, and Anne Ursu—writers I admire deeply.
Tell us something about your finalist book that you want readers to know?
A Tear in the Ocean is a magical adventure story involving runaway kids, and giant
polar bears, a personable dolphin, and a warm underground garden in the arctic;
and it’s a story about how we have to take action now to save the ocean (and by
extension, the world). But it’s also about how trauma can reverberate for
decades and much longer, and how, even so, we can live beyond the bad things
that happen to us, and how our stories are ours to tell or not.
Share something about your writing process and preferences. For
instance, where is your favorite place to write?
I can write almost anywhere, and I often write in short bursts of time; if I didn’t, I don’t think I’d ever finish anything. But my preference when I’m drafting is a quiet uncrowded coffee shop with comfortable seating. That way I can hog a table and spread out a bit. And since I’m not home, I don’t have to think about the laundry or the dishes or the million other things that need to be done. And if I ask for Earl Grey tea at Fresh Grounds, they always write my dad’s name on the cup.
Minnesota has a reputation as a state that values literature and reading. In your experience, what is it about our state that makes it such a welcoming place for writers and book creators?
Part of the magic is that the state has set aside funding
specifically for the arts, which is an important way of saying that arts are
valued here. In the Twin Cities where I live, the many colleges and universities—and
their creative writing programs and visiting authors—and the Loft Literary
Center and its festivals and programs all help to create a community that loves
literature and that is well-educated about writing. Beyond that? There’s a
magic that springs up when a small body of writers gets together regularly and
encourages each other, and that kind of gathering seems to happen often around
here. But the literary community in MN has long been mostly white, and hasn’t
had a reputation of inclusivity; I’m glad to see ways in which this is changing
for the better—and hope it continues to change.
What is something you are good at that few people know about?
I am a very good read-alouder, though my kids say I have only
one “old man” voice. “Mom, you’re doing Dumbledore again.” In my defense: I’m
pretty good at Dumbledore.
What do you love about
libraries?
I love the quiet comfy chairs near the windows on the second floor of the Highland Park library. They face the street, and there is a register beneath the window where you can prop your feet in the winter if you finagle the chair into the right spot, so that you can sit with a mystery novel from the nearby shelf and read and glance out the window at the falling snow and then read again, surrounded by peace.
When my kids were little, the library was the place to bring them to play for a half hour or so whenever the apartment was just too small for us. We’d walk to the Merriam Park Library, they’d play Zoombinis on the computer for a few minutes and then do puzzles or find books to peruse, and I’d locate my own books waaaaaay on the other side of the library, which at Merriam Park means I was maybe 20 or 30 feet away from the kids.
When the kids were a little older, we drove to the South St. Paul library for a monthly book club. We also went to the Rondo Library, where the kids had a weekly Spanish class. I still have art hanging in my kitchen that my younger one created at Rondo: a life-sized portrait of himself at age five with an enormous cabeza, no nariz, and shoulder blades that look like wings. A few months ago, I was back at Rondo, sitting in the same room where my kids studied Spanish a decade ago, for a meeting of Tolkien admirers and a hobbit birthday party. There was cake. It was delicious.
When he was a young teenager, my older child was in a playwriting group at the Arlington Hills Library, led by the phenomenal dramatist May Lee Yang. For sixteen weeks, the younger kid and I read in the library while the older one learned he liked writing but hated acting.
I’ve attended a variety of readings at the Midway library: most recently, to hear my kid’s teacher talk about his new self-published book. I sat in the back corner, just like I did almost two decades ago, when I had just moved to town and went to hear Kate DiCamillo for the first time. I love that basement room.
And yes, I check out books! And yes, it is AMAZING, always, that you can walk into a public building and borrow books for free; it an astoundingly democratic thing. But I also love that libraries are a community hanging-out space, a place where kids can do homework, and adults can job-search, and people can attend puppet shows and kids’ story times and readings and classes, and where anyone can ask for help finding information they need. And I love that a library is a place where people know they are welcome, and there will always be a chair, and a story, and an island of peace when they need it.
H. M. Bouwman is also the author of A Crack in the Sea as well as the Owen and Eleanor early chapter books for emerging readers. A professor of English at the University of St. Thomas, she lives in Saint Paul with her family.