Today I’m resharing an interview with Australian author Hannah Currie. Hannah’s fifth novel, the second book in her Crown of Promise series, will release later this year.
Introducing Hannah Currie
Where are you from? (Or where do you live?)
Brisbane, Australia. Born, raised, and still living here.
If you had an unlimited travel budget, which country would be your top pick to visit?
Wouldn’t that be fun! And I’d have to say Scotland. Or Ireland. Am I allowed to say all of the UK? So many beautiful places I’d absolutely love to see. Although, my kids would totally say the USA so they could go to Disneyland. We’ve been dreaming about that as a family for a while 
What’s your most memorable real-life travel experience?
When I was eighteen, I travelled with a Teen Missions team to Brazil and spent a couple of weeks traveling up (down?) tributaries of the Amazon, visiting groups of people so remote that they were only accessible by boat. Such an unforgettable experience – the people, the river, the team, getting soaked running through the jungle in the rain one day…
What are your favorite hobbies and activities outside writing and reading?
Family time. I LOVE spending time with my family – whether it’s playing MarioKart with my kids, watching movies, creating Lego masterpieces, baking, going for country drives and picnics, making elaborate train tracks, reading books together or sitting around chatting, I love it all!
About Your Writing
What genre do you write?
I write Young Adult Contemporary Christian Romance Fiction. Or YA princess books, which is much easier to say.
What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve been a bookworm since birth (thanks, Mum!) and have always loved making up stories, although I never considered seriously writing books until my early twenties. At the time, I was mentoring a group of high school girls through youth group at my church. Each week, as we’d talk, I’d realize more and more how much the novels I read through my teens – especially Robin Jones Gunn’s Christy Miller (and co) series – had impacted my Christian walk.
When my lifelong dream of being an overseas missionary took a tumble due to health issues, God reminded me that he wasn’t done with me yet. That I could still tell people about him and encourage them right from where I was, through my writing. A passion was born and I’ve never looked back.
As to this particular book, it was more the fact that my teenage sister and I had been reading a series of princess books together, the last one wasn’t being released for another six months and neither of us were feeling particularly patient. I wrote this to pass the time and sent her a chapter a week. Still not sure whether that was mean or nice of me :p
What’s your favourite part of the writing process? What’s your least favourite?
I really enjoy the whole writing process – from first draft to editing to final proofread – so it’s difficult to pick one but I do love that moment in each of my books (usually somewhere in the first draft) when the story really comes alive. It’s always something different that causes it – sometimes changing a character’s name, sometimes a glimpse into a character’s heart I hadn’t seen before, sometimes adding just one scene – but yeah, that moment when it stops being just words on a page and I fall in love with the story.
As to my least favourite, um…the moment just before the above? Usually about two thirds of the way through the first draft when I’ve written 60,000 words or so but it’s just feeling like words on a page and I know the heart isn’t there and I’m wondering if it ever will be or if I should just dump the whole thing in the bin and start from scratch.
Is there a common theme to your books? What is it?
Hope. The fact that no matter how dark or bleak life may look at times, there is always hope because God will never turn his back on us and walk away.
What would you like readers to say about your books?
That they loved them! (Wouldn’t every author??) But really, I’d like for them to laugh, swoon a little (or a lot!) and be encouraged that they are not alone in their struggles, nor is what they see before them today the best it will ever get. And if it makes them think about their own relationship with God? I’d be stoked!
What is the best writing advice that someone has shared with you?
Write what you know. This has been great advice both in the normal sense – as in write what God has taught you and you know well – but also practically. Sometimes I’ll finish a scene and have no idea what to write next. Instead of staring blankly at the screen for a few more hours, I’ll go through what else I know about the story and write that.
Writing Christian Fiction
What’s your inspiration for writing Christian fiction?
God? My own life? I’ve thought about writing books and leaving God out of them but when it comes down to it, he’s such a huge part of my life (and always has been) that I don’t think I could write a story without God in it. Even if its subtle.
What’s your favourite Christian fiction genre to read?
Romance If it’s got a romance in it, I’ll read pretty much any of the Christian fiction genre. Although some historical eras confuse me since I’ve never been a big history buff (especially US history). And I’m not big on war settings. Although even within those, there are exceptions (like Roseanna White’s Shadows over England series, which I absolutely loved!)
Who are three of your favorite Christian authors?
Only three????? No fair. Ummm … Kristy Ann Hunter, Melissa Tagg, and Kara Isaac.
About Bring Her Home (Crown of Promise #1)
Since the morning he woke to find his precious daughter gone with only the remains of their latest argument left behind, King Lior has been praying she’d come home. For four years now, he’s prayed and searched, sending his best knights to find Evangeline, only to hear nothing. Until the day their missive arrives with three words: we’ve found her. He sends one right back with orders to bring her home.
But that order isn’t easily achieved. Evangeline, now a lowly servant, has no plans to return. Though the knights claim her father still loves her, she knows the truth: he’d cast her aside as quickly as everyone else if he knew how far she’d truly fallen. She can’t go home. Not with her scars. Or her failures. Or her son.
Only, the knights won’t leave without her. And just as she starts to wonder if maybe they might be right, the choice is taken from her altogether.
Sir Darrek thought the hardest part of his quest would be finding Evangeline. He had no idea how difficult it would be to get her home.
I loved your Christmas blog novella, and your WIP sounds interesting!
Thank you Dienece! The Christmas novella was a lot of fun to write (especially since it was set in Australia!) so I’m really glad you enjoyed it too 🙂 My second Crown of Promise book will be out later this year. Hope you like it too!
I enjoyed reading this, especially to see your favourite theme is hope. This has been an important theme in my life in recent times. Last week I was asked to do a Bible study with less than 24 hours notice as the lady doing it was not able to do so at the last moment. The Lord quickly put to my mind to do a study on Hope. I personally was very blessed as I considered the Scriptures and put together a study. I quickly found there was so much more than I could possibly put into a one evening study time. Thank you for these thoughts.
Hope is an important and enduring theme … especially in Christian fiction!
Thanks for stopping by.
Thank you Heather 🙂
And yes, hope seems to show up in all of my books, and there is certainly a LOT in the Bible about it. I’m impressed you could put together a study in less than 24 hours! i’m sure the rest of the group was blessed by it too.