An Interview with Hazel Hart
Hazel Hart has been writing since she was a teenager. Her short stories and early novels have a contemporary setting. However, with her first series, the Pierce Family Saga, she returned to her childhood love for frontier fiction. All of Hazel’s stories, short or long, contemporary or historical, center on themes of faith, family, and friendship. She defines faith, not in a particular religious context, but in what a person believes in their heart to be true about themselves and the world around them.
Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?
As an only child born in a world before television, I spent many hours reading books, hanging out in libraries, and going to the Saturday afternoon movies. On summer days, while I walked through the pasture to the creek on our farm, I made up new adventures about my favorite characters. In my late teens and early twenties, I started submitting my stories to a variety of publications, from confessions to literary magazines. A few of them were accepted.
Then, I began writing novels and submitting them to editors and agents. My first novel, The Night before Christmas, took thirty years from idea to published book. Those were the days when multiple submissions were frowned upon. After several tries, I sent the novel to a major publisher in 2006. That editor kept it for over a year before I sent a query about what was happening with it. No answer. I sent two more letters and finally got my manuscript back. I opened the box and saw untouched pages: not a wrinkle, crease, or coffee stain. It had never been read, but I had lost eighteen months of my life. I was sixty years old and decided that if I was ever going to get published, I’d have to do it myself. That is the reason I became a self-published author.
The book that most influenced my writing was William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, because of his use of point of view. I have never attempted fifteen point-of-view characters in a single book, but I have often used four.
What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?
I have been a waitress, sales associate, health food store manager, tax preparer, and English teacher. I have been a ghostwriter and have written about ghosts. Readers probably don’t know that when I was sixteen, I worked in a nursing home. At night, I slept in a three-room house where two women patients resided. They had the bedroom. My one-year-old daughter and I slept in the living room, her in her crib and me on the couch.
Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?
Uprooted was an easy title. As someone who has been uprooted many times in my own life, I knew what my character, Hannah True, was experiencing when after years of caring for her invalid mother and running a hotel for her family, her mother died and she was suddenly without a home or employment. The loss left her disconnected and desperate to find a new place in the world.
What part of publishing your book made it feel real for the first time?
The book felt real as I finished the formatting, received the book cover from a friend, and uploaded the files for publication. A few days later, I held the proof copy in my hand.
What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?
Even if things do not turn out the way you envision them, there is still hope for the future. Go forward and live your life to the fullest.
What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?
Instead of Uprooted, I am going to write about the most meaningful part of publishing my first book ever, The Night before Christmas. I was working with my best friend and writing buddy, Bonnie Eaton, aka B. J. Myrick. We both had written novels, and together we fumbled our way through the self-publishing platforms of Lulu, Smashwords, and Create Space, and finally landed on Amazon. Bonnie, who passed away from COVID in 2021, was a retired art teacher and made our first book covers. Without her encouragement, I might never have published my first book.
What creative projects are you currently working on?
I am currently working on Revelations, the fifth book in the Hannah True series. It takes place in 1863. Supplies for the Union troops are being stolen and/or shoddy goods are being sent to the battlefield. Bags of flour leave a mill and arrive as bags of sawdust. Kegs of whiskey meant to help the wounded through surgeries have been switched for water. The stolen supplies have affected Hannah’s nephew, Ambrose, a soldier in the Union Army, and her niece, Cordelia, who is dressed once again as a male as she takes photographs of the battlefield for Mathew Brady. Hannah and the Hollandar Agency are investigating the thefts. Revelations is in the research stage. My plan is to publish in mid-2027.
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