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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [00:05]
B
Hi. This is Rebecca Buchanan, host at New Books Network. And today I'm here with Jill Ann Hoffman to talk about her latest book, Heartland. Jillian, thanks for being here with me today.
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A
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
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B
Could you start by giving a bit of an overview of what Heartland is about?
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A
Oh, man. Heartland is a big book about lots of things, but underneath it all, it's a book about heartbreak and loss and how you mend broken hearts. The characters involved are Cassiopeia Alcorn, who is the mother in our story, but she is also a 12 year old girl in our story because there are two timelines and Zyla is our current 12 year old girl. She has lost her father because her father went MIA and her mother refuses, Cassie, refuses to speak about him. Cassie has a broken heart because she lost her parents, she lost some of her best friends, she almost lost the farm. Zyla's broken heart has to do with her loss of her father and the loss of her empathetic mother. Right. Cassie no longer has this emotional connection with her daughter because she's put up this wall. And then it's about a family that moves into the farm. Alegria and her father and Alegria's brother. They're dealing with their own heartbreak, the loss of a wife and mother. Selina Alegria wants to become a lawyer, but she also wants to become or wants to have a quinceanera. And her father does not want her to have a quinceanera because he wants all of that money to go toward her becoming a lawyer. And his heart is so broken that he does a lot of really questionable things. He's kind of at a loss. And so we have all of these people who are involved with each other. And it's all set against the backdrop of an Iowa farm and the farm crisis of the 1980s and the current contemporary crisis of environmental pollution, groundwater pollution, also air pollution in Iowa. So there's a lot going on in this book.
- [02:44]
B
Could you talk about kind of how this, why you decided to write this sort of how it came to be and why? Because as a child of like, you know, I was born in the 70s, but I grew up in rural Minnesota during that sort of farm crisis. I know, like, I was like, yes, I know. And I know what has come of this. Like, it really resonated with me. But I'd love for you to talk about, like, why, why you decided to write this and sort of, yeah, that,
- [03:10]
A
you know, it's, it's really funny. My son's the. The librarian at my son's school had a free cart and I volunteered in the library. And on this free cart was Karen Hess's out of the Dust. She was culling books from the library, old books from the library, or books that had not been checked out recently. And I read this book. I picked it up off the free card. It was a novel in verse, and it was about the dust bowl, right? And I want a newberry. And it was on the free cart. It was, you know, kind of being shoved aside. And I'm like, this farm, things are important and people need to know the history of farming in the United States, right? And all of the. Everybody has this kind of like bucolic view of what farming is, right? Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if I just had a little farm and, oh, everything would be perfect. No, it's not perfect. And so I read her book and I thought I. I should write. I feel like the farm crisis. No one knows anything about the farm crisis that was started, actually started in the 1970s and really bloomed in the 1980s, early 1980s, and then it was kind of tapering. By the end of the 1980s, I wanted to write about that. And so I wrote this first novel in verse, and it was solely the right. That timeline. And that book was written, I think at first in 2019. And I sent it to my agent. My agent had suggestions. We fixed the problems that it had, and then we sent it out and it got an immediate offer from, well, immediate interest, I should say, from Little Brown. And Deirdre Jones, the editor, took it to acquisitions and acquisitions. You know, a lot of people come together at acquisitions and sales and marketing were there. And sales and marketing said, you know, we're kind of concerned that this is a book about the 1980s, and we don't really think the books about the 1980s sell. And if I had been there, I would have like, raised the roof, right? But Deirdre hadn't even thought that that would be kind of like an objection. And so she was just a little bit shell shocked and came back to me and said, I can only make you an offer if you promise to make it a contemporary timeline. And I was like, wait, this is a book about the farm crisis of the 1980s. How could I make it. How could I make it contemporary? And I said, no, I can't do that. You know, I it some really hard thought because, you know, it was an offer, right? I gave it some hard thought and decided I I couldn't do it. And so we parted ways, and about six months, seven months later, my agent came back to me and said, you know, I've been having a conversation with a friend, and maybe would you be interested in writing a dual timeline? You could keep the 1980s and then have something, a contemporary timeline that would satisfy, you know, the sales and marketing people. And so I did a little bit of research, and I was just horrified at what I saw about the groundwater in Iowa. And I said, okay, I can do this. I can write a novel that blends the two, right? Two timelines. And so I wrote a synopsis, right? And I sent it to my agent, and she sent it to Deirdre. And Deirdre was like, this is awesome. This is fantastic. Let's do this. And I got an offer immediately, right, for this book that I had not yet written. It was just a synopsis. So the pressure was then on, and over the next year and a half or so, we developed this whole new novel. And there was a lot of angst on my part because I had not lived with these, the contemporary characters for very long. And the longer you live with your characters, the richer all of the details become. And so we had two rounds of revisions, and the book developed through those. Those rounds of revisions. And at one point, I was really. This book grew to. To be 110, 000 words, okay? 110, 000 words. And. And I got it down to about 90, 000 the last time I sent it to Deirdre. And she said, you know what? We've got it. We've got to get it down to somewhere in the 70s. We got it. We got to get into the 70s. And so I spent the summer of last year cutting and trying to compress information into a much smaller space. And some of my favorite poems were left on the cutting room floor. But I do think that it's really important for kids to be able to get through a book, right? And we have lots of white space in the verse. We have lots of interesting typography so that it's fun and visually interesting. Kind of like. I mean, there are certain elements that feel like, you know, the concrete poems that feel a little bit more like you're looking at maybe, you know, like the intermingling of text and illustrations, even though there's no illustrations except for the maps in the front and the back. Right? So. So, yeah. Am I flapping my gums too much?
- [09:23]
B
No, that's. I love it. I love it so much. And because so Then. So you really were like. It was Cassie that started, right? Because I wanted to ask about, like, this mother daughter relationship. And thinking about, like, writing a dual timeline can be difficult because, like you said, you have to kind of embody or be with very different characters at times. And so, yeah, what was that like? Going from the mother, like, Cassie as this young person, and thinking about, okay, now what is her life like in between? And now I end up with the child.
- [09:55]
A
I know. It was like. It's like, you know, there's a. There's also a theme in this book of, like, time travel. And I did feel like I was kind of going through wormholes to time travel back and forth between their lives. And I kind of wanted to have that effect with the way I interspersed the diary entries that are read throughout the book. And so it was a bit like time travel and a bit like, okay, so how did she get to this point where she is alone on the farm? There's no one else she has that she can depend on except herself, right? And now she has this daughter who doesn't love the farm, this farm that she has given her life to and that so many generations have given their life to. And there's this huge disconnect between these two that are just, like, butting heads, right? I mean, Zyla's like, if only I could find my father, I could leave this place. He would save me from all this, right? And because there's this. This huge disconnect, this huge lack of communication between the two, Zyla is completely clueless about what the reality of her situation actually is, right? And I think that happens a lot. I mean, look, how if we don't have information, if we don't know what's going on, we create this whole false narrative of if only, or it would be different if. I mean, we do this in all aspects of our lives, right? And when we do it with the people that we should love and be closest to the most, it can be just really disastrous.
- [11:45]
B
Well, and I feel like it also, like, this. The dual timelines for me, also a lot. Like, there's that, like, all of what you're talking about as an adult really resonates with me, right? Because even as an adult, I'm like, oh, yes, now I understand why my parents did these things they did, right? You know, you're like, why? Why do we have to do that? Why do I have to live here? Why do you. Like, I get, like, the Zyla thing, I'm like, I get it, but she's Also gets. Like, she finds. Like, part of it is, yes, she finds her mom's diary. She finds this writing of her mom. So she's also, like, figuring out who her mother is with, right. In this kind of beautiful way and having to navigate and figure that out, too, as well as she figured. Like, it helps her to figure. It helps Zyla figure out who she is. Right? As she figures out who her mom is.
- [12:31]
A
Yes. And the funny thing about. I mean, these two are so much alike and they. They don't. It's like they're so much. Like, they can't see it, you know, and when they kind of figure out that they really are, they're very similar. And yet they do have different ideas about how things should be, you know, Xyliss still at the end. Well, I don't know how much we should give away.
- [13:01]
B
It's up to you.
- [13:03]
A
I mean, Zyla does need to figure out that. I mean, she can be different from her mom and yet still love and work with her mom, you know, but figuring out how to do that is part of what the book is about, right? Figuring out how to navigate your relationships together, how to make them work. So I think that's. And that's with friendship, too. With Alegria.
- [13:31]
B
I was just gonna. I was just gonna say, like, you see that with her friendship, right? And bringing in the friendship and trying to figure out. And I think that's so important, especially for younger, like, middle grades readers who are really trying to figure out who they are, who their friends are. What does that mean? Like. Like, what is my friend group? What do I want in a friend? What kind of friend do I want to be? Right. There's all these things that they're figuring out and that you can kind of see her figuring out, too.
- [13:57]
A
Yes, yes. And she's never really had that opportunity before because she's always been kind of like the odd person out at school. You know, she's. She's never really been able to navigate that. That relationship building before. And this gives her a chance to kind of, like, she sends out little tendrils of. Of, well, will this work? Will that work? You know, and, oh, why do I feel. Why am I so jealous of her? I mean, and, you know, she doesn't really like her mom and. But why is she so jealous of Alegria when her mom gives Alegria all the attention? You know, so there's so many different aspects of learning just how relationships work, just in general. Yeah.
- [14:47]
B
Yeah. I mean, and also her finding sort of relationships with adults. Right. You know, when we start, there's like one adult, right. We've got the librarian who's the one who, like Mr. Rat. And she started writing. Even that is like, oh, I start to learn a little bit more about who my mom used to be. Like, you know, it's. I love when young people realize their parents are actually people. Right.
- [15:11]
A
A life before them. Unbelievable.
- [15:14]
B
Yes. You know, and you get older and you're like, you wish you had more time to talk to your parents about that life they had before. Right. But. Yeah, but. So she even has that kind of navigating relationships with other adults, trying to figure out how does she trust her dad? Does she not trust her dad when her dad, you know, I mean, her dad does show up in the picture. I don't think it's a spoiler that her dad shows up. Right, right. Her dad appears in the picture. But trying to figure out and navigate that kind of relationship, too, that young people who might not have a parent around are trying to figure out, like, how much can I trust that parent? Right.
- [15:51]
A
Yes. And I. I hope that there's a. There's another person who shows up who kind of gives a clue about learning how to trust people by paying attention to what they do versus what they say. Right. Because oftentimes what a person does, how they act is how they truly are versus this kind of imaginary person that says things that sound really great. Right. But might not be completely truthful, you know, so. So yeah, yeah, it's really, really kind of funny because the politics and prose, the. The bookstore in Washington, D.C. the indie bookstore in Washington, D.C. i had gotten some feedback from the sales rep, the little brown sales rep that had visited there. And she said, you know, we had a discussion about this. This book, and it was really a lot more like maybe a college seminar on all the different themes and topics and how they're interwoven. And we had this really long discussion about the book. And I said, well, I hope that's a good thing. And is it too complicated? I don't know.
- [17:12]
B
Well, but, no, but I feel like, at least for me as a reader and thinking about, like, in my role as working with, you know, future teachers and often thinking about, okay, what books would work really well in a classroom and how can they use them? I could have one teacher who he is teaching at this, you know, small town, rural town in Illinois where he went to high school. He's really interested in sort of like the environmental stuff, the farm bill, all of that. And I'm Like, I've got a book for you because. Right. It's like this idea that you can give a little bit of history and also kind of get an idea of, like, how that's impacting what's happening now and allowing young people to say, I maybe should investigate this. Right. Like, I'd love to talk a little bit about, like, why. You know, like, why you chose Iowa. You could choose kind of. There's multiple places it could have been set in. Right. But like. But thinking about then, how does this sort of. What are these issues and how do these. Some of these issues relate to where I am or where I'm. Even if you're not in a rural space, what happened with the farming impacted everyone. Right. And what's happening now impacts everyone no matter where you are. Right?
- [18:19]
A
Yes. Yes, it does. And I think the more that I investigated. Well, why it's set in Iowa is because, I mean, even though I'm from Illinois, when Iowa just got pummeled with concentrated animal feeding operations, the number. I think it's kind of like New Zealand with sheep. Right. There were like 3 million people and 20 million sheep. Right. But they weren't concentrated in very specific places. Well, here you've got 3 million people and millions. Millions of hogs, millions of cattle, and their waste is not being treated. Right. And the groundwater. The minute I looked this. This is what really tipped the scales for me. The minute I looked at the Department of Natural Resources map of Iowa and the. What do they call it? The. Oh, shoot. The waters that are. Gosh, what's the word? I'm missing the word not challenged. But I. I mean, waters that you would not want to swim in.
- [19:31]
B
Waters that are not healthy, like a contaminated kind of.
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A
Or contaminated. But it's. They use a kind of Like a. One of those borderline words that. That kind of walk the line between. It's a euphemism. Right. And. And it's like, these are waters that are not good for wildlife, not good for human beings. And it. It looks like the state is just cracking apart. Right. With these contaminated waters. And then I talked to Chris Jones, who wrote the Swine Republic, and Chris was like, nobody wants to hear this except for the people of Iowa, who are not farming, but are affected by farming. The ag industry doesn't want to hear this. The Iowa Supreme Court doesn't want to hear this because they ruled in favor of the animal operations over human beings. Right. And this whole thing just really gets my dander up. And it's kind of like Citizens United Right. Corporations have more power because of Citizens United than human beings, you know, so anyway, I could just go on and on.
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B
I'm with you.
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A
So where. Where was I going?
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B
Well, no, why? I were right. Iowa. Like, I was thinking.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Like, and the fact that, like, wherever you said, like, this impacts. There's a wider region, a wider impact that I think people do think, they're like, oh, this is a book about farms. Right. But whatever happens on farming land and in rural America is going to impact all of you. Right. The.
- [21:13]
A
The Mississippi River. Everything drains into the Mississippi River. Everything drains into the Delta, you know, And I think that's why. One of the reasons why I got so excited to include our Children's Trust, the organization, the legal organization that's helping kids fight back. Right. This is kind of like, so empowering to think that kids can band together and have some. Some sort of advocate that helps them have a longer reach. Right. And that they're winning, at least right now, they're winning the lawsuits against the. The epa, against the government for not protecting their rights to clean water and clean air. Right. That's what they're supposed to be, that we're supposed to have access to those things as human beings. It's only natural. Right. So everybody in the United States should be thinking about that kind of thing, right?
- [22:13]
B
No, 100% agree. Right. And I write, like, I just, like, it's so important, and it's something. And I think, like, having, like, novels like this and having a way for young people to see, okay, there are multiple ways I can enter this. I don't have to enter it in this kind of big, like, what can I do? If I can just do something at home or. Or in my community or just make a little bit of awareness. Right. It doesn't have. Sometimes it feels. Environmental justice feels overwhelming, I think, for young people, for anybody right now. Right. But, like, being able to think about, okay, what are some little things that maybe I can do or even who can I learn from to make a little bit of a difference? Right.
- [22:59]
A
And that's why I include some resources, especially in the back of the book. I mention it kind of in the narrative, but resources in the back of the book about kids who are doing things in their communities, they're at their schools, you know, that they are taking positive action. And I think in times like this, taking any kind of positive action gives you that. A sense of empowerment, a sense of agency that you. If you can't control what's going on in the entire world, you can at least have a positive impact around you in your local area. Right. And I think kids, individual kids, can do their own things, whether it's, you know, like signing up for a csa, you know, if, if you have one available, or even like learning how to grow your own produce, that tomato plant out there, learn how to take care of something that's good for you. Right. So any of those actions that you take from the smallest ones, do some wildflower distribution. Right. Let's. Let's help the butterflies. You know, everything. Right. There is no. As my, my friends who wrote the books no Voice Too Small and no World Too Big, about kids taking action, those two books, I think, are really good blueprint for giving kids ideas about what they can do. So I think right now, when we tend to despair, giving a sense of hope and a sense that there are positive actions that you can take, however small, however big, that's going to help get you through the day. Right?
- [24:55]
B
Yeah. So when you, when you went to sort of do this synopsis, do this dual timeline, was this something that you were thinking about? Were you like, I really want to make sure that this is something where young people then are going to read it today and kind of think about, okay, what is going on around me? What can I do in my community? Like, when you were talking, I was even, we have a, you know, I mean, I, again, I'm in rural Illinois, so we have an ffa, we have a, you know, we have a local farmer's market. But kind of no matter where you live at this point in time, you can go to the farmer's market. Right. You can do a csa, you can buy local, you can learn about, you know, you can ride your bike to school instead of take, you know, whatever it is. There's those little things.
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A
Right.
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B
So was this something you were like, okay, if I'm going to bring it to 20, 26, present day, I want to make sure there's some actionable work in here.
- [25:49]
A
Yes, Yes. I think, you know, it's really kind of funny. I'm, in a way, very relieved. Relieved. Excited. I don't know. It's serendipity that sales and marketing did not want just a historical novel because it would have remained in that time period and we wouldn't have had, you know, Silent Spring was part of the historical novel, but we wouldn't have this context of, well, where are we today in all of this? And I think that that adds so much rich texture and it adds this element of the contemporary situation that we are in. And things that we can do about it now. Right. It's not just thinking about the past. It's now and what we can do now. And I think that that gives it a whole different perspective, and I am really kind of grateful for that. So as painful as it was to have to do it, I am very thankful that I did do it.
- [27:01]
B
So as a writer, switch a little, because as a writer, because you had to, you know, you sort of wrote one book and then changed it. Is this a very different process than normal for you? Like, do you usually sit down and are like, okay, I'm gonna, you know, start at the beginning and write through? Like, can you talk a little bit about your process in, you know, writing?
- [27:21]
A
Yes. The first. The. The novel and verse I did during the 2019 NaNoWriMo, which was called National Novel Writing Month. Right. I wrote the whole book in that month. It was kind of like a stream of consciousness for that. And when I. And then the revisions were much more concentrated as far as what I needed to do when I wrote the synopsis for the contemporary story added to the historical. I was just thinking, yes. And I'm going to need to figure out a way to interleave these diary entries. Within the contemporary story, the voices of time and the farm and weather were always there. The voice, Earl Butz had a few more poems in the original, and he just got cut to a single poem just to give a flavor for who he was and why he may have done what he did. So those voices were always in there now. So Cash, Silas, father, his voice, that is. Now there are a few poems interspersed with him. He wasn't. He was a brand new. Brand new character that needed to come in. And so this. As I wrote the contemporary story, I had to keep in mind how. What Zyla. How Zyla would be reflected in. Well, let's see. How. How. How do I explain this? How the two were very similar and yet had their. Their main differences, right? And I had to kind of insert all of these echoes, right? With Tankman, for example, Tankman became this symbol of standing up to the man, right? Standing up to what's wrong with government. And he kind of got lost at a point in history, and I was really happy to bring him back because I think we need that now. We need to be kind of tank men standing in front of forces that would roll. Roll right over us, right. If we. If given the opportunity. So there was Cassie, who was standing in front of the bulldozer for the orchard, right? And now Zyla needs to be Standing up against the environmental disaster that's happening right next door. Right. In the moral decision that she has to make because her father is involved. Right. So she has to make these decisions. And being a whistleblower is a big deal, you know, and you can lose relationships over being a whistleblower. So interweaving all of these things and making them, you know, just the resonate I wanted resonating frequencies between the two stories. So there was a lot of going back with revision after revision and compression and making tiny little changes that would ping little musical notes right throughout so that it all came together at the end. I hope
- [31:10]
B
you have picture books, right? You write picture books. Is this your first sort of middle grades?
- [31:15]
A
Yes.
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B
So was. How did that. Like, how do you think writing picture books informed this? Not, you know, putting this together and writing this, like. Like you said, there is a lot of, like, sort of imagery throughout it, even, like, you know, on the page, but also with the lyrical voice and. And having different sort of characters and sort of, you know, speak during it. But. Yeah. How did writing picture books impact writing? A huge question.
- [31:46]
A
It is a huge question. It's really kind of funny. Patricia McLaughlin, who has written some wonderful picture books for older kids, she has a picture book called what you knew first, what I knew first, something like that. And it's about this little girl who has to leave the farm. It's a beautiful, lyrical book. And I read that kind of at the same time as I read Karen Hess's out of the Dust and this story. Originally, I thought I could write this as a picture book. Ha. No way. No way. But I kept those voices in my head, the lyricism of those voices in my head for the novel in verse. So all of the verse is really much more lyrical than the. Than Zyla's voice. But Zyla's voice has its own musical rhythm because of the way her brain processes. And the way her brain processes is a lot like the way mine. So it was pretty easy. No. So the cadence of her voice is kind of informed by how she thinks. And writing picture books, the voice is so. So important. Writing novels, the voice is so, so important that the voices of weather and the voices of time and the voices of the farm are very distinct, you know, and those voices came to me because that's how I feel. Their. This is kind of a weird way to say it. Their spirits. Right. Time is kind of like, I've been here forever, you know, I've seen everything. Nothing's gonna. Nothing's gonna, you know, phase Me, you know, and then weather is kind of like, huh, the gambler. Right, right. You, you, you place your bets and you take your chances with the weather. Right. And the farm. Oh, her heart, her heart is hurting because we are doing so much, so many bad things to her. She just is, is beyond. I mean, she's desperate for someone to love her. Right. And to do right by her, you know, so all of these voices come together and, and I think that writing picture books, choosing words carefully so that the voice is right, so that the, the phrasing is right, so that it all just feels natural. I think picture books are, are amazing with compression and how to express yourself in fewer words. So cutting from 110,000 to 70,000. My picture book cutting skills were in like overdrive. You know, Do I really need that word? Do I really need that sentence? Do I really need that paragraph? Yeah.
- [35:05]
B
I love it. I love it. I could probably talk to you forever about this, but like, because. But I will. I'm going to ask you one more question. And it's sort of self promotion, right? So the book comes out early July, July 7th. So anything want to promote about this book? Anything else you're working on? What do you want people to know?
- [35:24]
A
Well, okay. I would love it if people would pre order this book because as we all know, publishers love pre orders because it gives them some idea that people are really ready and, and waiting to read it. But other than that, I am going to be at ALA in Chicago here for the end of June. I am going to doing on July 11. I will be doing an hour and a half of behind the Book. If you want to know more about the making of this book, I will be doing it with Deirdre Jones, my editor from Little Brown and my agent, Lori Steele from Steelworks Literary. We'll be doing it through the Writing Barn. So it will be a Writing Barn webinar and it is for free. So if you want to just look it up on the Writing Barn website. And then I'm going to be at Napa Book Mine and we'll be talking about the writing process there. In August, I'm doing Texas, Eastern Texas Literary. What are they calling it? A literacy. A literate. It's like a literacy campaign in Texas in September and October. I'm doing Litquake here in San Francisco talking about the writing process. And then ncte, all you teachers and librarians, everybody get together and let's hang out together at NCTE in November in Philadelphia. How about that?
- [37:00]
B
That sounds awesome. I will be there. I'm very excited. So thank you again. Joanna Hoffman's novel Heartland. Thanks for talking with me on New Books Network.
- [37:11]
A
Oh, thank you for having me. It's been loads of fun. I appreciate it.
- [37:15]
C
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