Author Interview & Book Giveaway: Mirror Mirror by Stephanie Hart

Welcome to Author Stephanie Hart

Stephanie Hart teaches writing at The Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons The New School for Design in New York City. Her third book, Mirror Mirror: A Collection of Memoirs and Stories expands upon the series of fast paced vignettes presented in Clouds Like Horses and Other Stories. She is the author of a Young Adult fiction novel, Is There Any Way Out of Sixth Grade? Stephanie’s essays and short stories have appeared in anthologies such as Mondo James Dean, The Best Stories from ducts.org, and literary magazines including The Sun, Jewish Currents, And Then, and ducts.org.

http://www.mirrormirrorhart.com/

Interview:
If you were stranded on a desert island what 3 things would you want with you?

The complete works of Shakespeare, a journal to write in and a pen.

What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?

Traditional Japanese breakfast: sushi rice, seaweed, dried fish, miso soup, green tea, eggs, pickled vegetables, and tofu.

What is your favorite ice cream?

Peach

If you could meet one person who has died who would you choose?

Shakespeare

Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book.

My book will move you with its compelling style and encourage you to reflect on your life narrative.

Any other books in the works?  Goals for future project.

I am currently working on a novel about two brothers who have a complex and conflicted relationship. They are trying to realize their dreams during the McCarthy era in the 1950s, one as rising political leader in Brooklyn, the other as international architect.

What inspired you to want to become a writer?

I have always loved describing people and places. More recently I have come to think of writing as a way of discovering thoughts and feelings whether I am writing about myself or other characters.

What was your favorite book when you were a child/teen?

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Is there a song you could list as the theme song for your book or any of your characters?

“I’ll Take Manhattan” would be a theme song for the character of my mother.  It captures the glamour, the sophistication, and the dreams of a young woman who has fallen in love with the city.

What is one piece of advice you would give aspiring authors?

Find and read writing you love; then find your own style and voice.

What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you?

Be yourself. And make sure you know whom that is.

You have won one million dollars. What is the first thing you would buy?

A house overlooking the sea where I could write and dream.

Who or what inspired you to become an author?

My love of words and my desire to touch base with my thoughts and feelings.

Who are your favorite authors of all times?

Hemingway, Willa Cather, Janice Eidus, Janice Stefancole, and Robert Roth

What’s your favorite season/weather?

I love late fall when the air is fresh and alive with promise.

Tell us what your most rewarding experience is since being published.

Readers saying that the book has had a life changing effect on them.

Write a Haiku about your book

I touch the walls of my past

People and places come to life.

Words are the net I use to catch them.

Mirror Mirror 

A Collection of Memoirs and Stories, Stephanie Hart’s third book, is composed of a series of fast-paced vignettes that explore her childhood, youth, family, and ancestral background through a mix of real and imagined memories and events. She recounts and interprets the unique details of her own life, bringing to life the personalities and experiences of various relatives and friends in an intimate, heartbreaking, and often humorous manner. Her rich prose is evocative and poetic, yet highly accessible and engaging. Her story becomes a window into many lives, lives most readers will find reflected in their own personal narratives, encouraging them to revisit and re-imagine their own family backgrounds.
Seamlessly blending past and present, Stephanie takes us from Manhattan of the 1950s to Moscow and Odessa circa 1800s, where she imaginatively renders the lives of her grandparents and great grandparents, and then takes us into the twenty-first century. She bares her soul by inviting readers into her world: her magical and unsettling early childhood by the sea, her years spent as the only Jewish girl in a Presbyterian boarding school, her urban high school years during which conflict with her mercurial and charismatic mother reaches a crescendo, and the weight of her father’s anger and unrealized dreams press down upon her. While acknowledging the mirror of the past, she shows us the love and friendship reflected in her current life, celebrating the generative power of each moment to transform experience.
Mirror Mirror is beautifully enhanced with well-preserved photographs of Stephanie Hart’s family. These expressive images allow us to experience the climate of other times and places as if we had been there ourselves.

Giveaway Details 
1 copy of Mirror Mirror
Open to US only
Ends 7/2/12

a Rafflecopter giveaway