Fourth time's a charm

Local author's latest young adult novel tackles adult themes and picks up a publisher

By Christy Nadalin
Posted 7/22/18

"I've been chasing this publishing dream for 20 years," said Hannah Goodman, a Bristol author with three self-published books under her belt. Ms. Goodman's dream of being a writer is much older than …

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Fourth time's a charm

Local author's latest young adult novel tackles adult themes and picks up a publisher

Posted

"I've been chasing this publishing dream for 20 years," said Hannah Goodman, a Bristol author with three self-published books under her belt.

Ms. Goodman's dream of being a writer is much older than that, going all the way beck to elementary school in Middletown (and she has a timeworn classroom award to prove it.) But although the work ethic and the productivity have always been there, the recognition she sought eluded her for a number of years.

"I've had some minor successes, and a few agents," she said. But things didn't work well, and for a while she threw herself into her other work — teaching school in Middletown and Cumberland, for a time; more recently her psychotherapy practice.

She got her work to readers through self-publishing. But she never gave up on the idea of getting a publishing house to buy in to her stories and stand behind her. Last year she reconnected on Facebook with a friend she met while getting her MFA in creative writing. That friend had just gotten a book deal with a small independent publishing outfit called Black Rose Writing, and she encouraged Ms. Goodman to reach out to them. Goodman did, they responded favorably, and the rest is history.
"It was crazy, the way it all kind of rolled out," said Ms. Goodman. "Until now, nothing had broken through."

Notable is the fact that this is Ms. Goodman's first book that she wrote entirely as an adult (not just as a chronological adult or twenty-something "quasi" adult, as she said.) "It's a reflection of the 20 years I've spent working with teenagers."
"I love teenagers," said Ms. Goodman. It's a rare sentiment and a rarely heard statement for sure, but without a hint of artifice. Teenagers have always appealed to Ms. Goodman, which is why, even as a full adult herself, YA remains her preferred genre. "Most of my life I've felt perpetually 15," she admits. But there's more to it than that. "Teens are curious and willing to take emotional risks because they they don't know any better….but they know enough so that they've started building an identity."

Her latest, "Till It Stops Beating", has been described as a "tender, heartwarming tale of first love, first loss, and jelly donuts." It tells the story of seventeen-year-old Maddie Hickman, who has always coped with anxiety by immersing herself into the latest self-help book. But when her grandmother is diagnosed with cancer, she spirals so far downward that she almost risks losing everything she holds dear. From applying to college to solving the mystery of why she detests jelly doughnuts to writing a novel for her senior project and reconnecting with an old flame (or two), the ever-mounting stress leads to an unexpected road trip where she is forced to listen to her wildly beating heart. It is only in the back of a convertible with pop music blasting, that she discovers what she needs in order to really live.
These days, when she's not writing or promoting her latest project, Ms. Goodman can be found coaching writing, college counseling, and practicing psychotherapy in her Barrington office — often all three on the same day. And she's well equipped, at 40-something, to take on the teenage years of her own two daughters, currently ages 14 and 10, who she is raising in Bristol with her husband of 19 years.
"It's amazing," she said, "how eventually all things come together."

Ms. Goodman will be signing copies of "Till it stops beating" on August 4 at Stillwater Books in Pawtucket.

You can find her on Twitter: @hannahrgoodman; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tillitstopsbeatingnovel; Website: https://www.hannahrgoodman.com; Blog: https://www.writerwomyn.com; or Email: hrgwriterwoman@gmail.com.

Hannah Goodman

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