It is a huge pleasure to welcome Lauren Wolk to the blog.  Lauren has been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for her novels Wolf Hollow, Beyond the Bright Sea and Echo Mountain.  Here Lauren discusses her experiences of revisiting the world and characters of Wolf Hollow for her latest book My Own Lightning. 

“What’s the point?” That’s how some people reacted when I announced my plans to write a sequel to Wolf Hollow. They saw no good reason to write a companion to a book that was so entire unto itself.

But there was a point. I wanted to discover how the sorrows of Wolf Hollow had changed my protagonist, Annabelle McBride. I wanted to follow her into a fresh chapter of her life, to see what she’d learned from her experiences and mistakes.

Although I was inspired to write My Own Lightning before the pandemic began, the isolation it caused, along with rising political and social turmoil, amplified my desire to return to Wolf Hollow: both the place and its people.

Initially, I craved the safety and simplicity of a small farm and a good and kind family. I missed all that. I wanted to “go home” for a while.

But as the world spun out of control all around me, I also felt a renewed kinship with my beloved Annabelle, who was likewise living in a time of global discord while grappling with her own personal demons.

I saw a sequel as a chance to investigate my own changing world as she investigated hers.

I didn’t foresee how a summer storm would literally shock her into a new awareness of her surroundings and endow her with a whole raft of heightened senses, including the ability to empathize with and understand animals and people more deeply than ever before.

I didn’t foresee the new characters who entered the story to push the boundaries of Wolf Hollow outward, expanding Annabelle’s life as she crossed the bridge toward adulthood.

And I didn’t foresee that Andy, one of the bullies from Wolf Hollow, would become a main character … or that I would actually like him. Love him. And learn from him. Just as Annabelle does.

But it is in the unforeseen that I am happiest.

I write without a map for many reasons, paramount among them the satisfaction of surprises and epiphanies. I so love to slip into a character’s skin, experience her story as she does, find my way one word at a time. In the process, I am both reader and writer, simultaneously. And there are few things more rewarding that that.

I’m deeply grateful that I had the chance to write My Own Lightning. Writing a novel – as with any creative effort – is a leap of faith, with no guarantee of a safe landing.  But without a willingness to explore the unknown, there is no chance for discovery.

And discovery is always worth the risk.

I know Annabelle would agree with me. My Own Lightning is the story of her own journey into the unknown. And into the insights, revelations, and escalating hope she finds there.

A huge thank you to Lauren Wolk for the blog and to Nina Douglas and Penguin Random House for the opportunity.  Photograph of Lauren Wolk is copyright of Robert Nash.