Interview with Hannah Carter
Author of Saltwater Souls
May is a time in which many seek out mermaid stories, so it’s the perfect time to share an interview with author Hannah Carter! She has written and published many mermaid tales, including the six stories in the collection Saltwater Souls. This month marks one year since the book’s publication, and I enjoyed hearing more from Hannah about these short stories and the heart behind them.
• Can you please tell us a little about yourself and how long you’ve been writing stories?
Absolutely! Thank you so much for interviewing me today.
So, a little about myself—I’m an INFP, Enneagram 4 for those who like personality quizzes. I’m a diehard Ravenclaw, a proud geek, and tea fanatic. I’m also a mother/slave of two cats, Lucy and Yelena. (Their names also give you some more insight into my fandoms: Lucy is named after Lucy Pevensie, and Yelena is after the MCU character.)
I also love to travel, and so far I’ve been to 25 states (I’ve driven through 2 more, but I don’t count it unless I do something there) and 6 different countries. Hoping to make it 7 and mark Canada off the list by the end of the year!
As for writing—honestly, I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. It started as a kid, when I would make up stories in my head to fall asleep. So basically, I started writing fanfic when I was 7…and the subject? Mermaids, of course. (Specifically The Wiggles and Scooby-Doo got turned into mermaids…mermen?…mer-dogs?…and had adventures under the sea. The crossover nobody knew they needed, right?)
I wrote down my first original story when I was 9, and it was a historical fiction about twins who suddenly discover they were triplets, and had absolutely no trauma or questions about the ordeal. After some valid criticism (“Why do you tell us how long it took her to do everything in her morning routine? We don’t need to know it took her five minutes to brush her hair.”), I put that story aside but never stopped writing. I bounced between fantasy, contemporary, and mysteries for most of my teen years, usually not finishing much, but all those late night scribbles have finally led me to where I am today: with 3 (almost 4!) published books, nearly 50 flash fiction stories, and about the same amount of short stories under my belt.
• So you’ve always loved mermaids?
I have always loved mermaids—ever since I first watched Disney’s The Little Mermaid as a kid, I was immediately hooked (pun intended). I used to play mermaids in the bathtub, in the pool—even when I was out of water, I had an area behind my grandparents’ catty-cornered couch that I would pretend was Ariel’s “grotto” and I would collect little knick-knacks and “thingamabobs.”
As a teen, this obsession didn’t really die down, probably thanks to H2O: Just Add Water. My best friend and I binged every episode an untold amount of times—truth be told, we still go back and watch the show every once in a while! (As in, those were our weekend plans last week.)
• What first sparked the idea for the short story collection Saltwater Souls?
What first sparked the idea for Saltwater Souls was Anne J. Hill approaching me. She knew that I had a lot of mermaid short stories, and asked me if I’d ever thought about compiling them into a collection—along with some new ones, of course! I was intrigued by the idea and took her up on it. I started going through some completed stories, some half-completed stories, and then ideas that I’d had. Two stories were completely new from ideas, three stories were half-started/written but not edited, and only one had been published before (and it got a completely new ending and became almost double the length!).
• Without too many spoilers, which story was the easiest to write? Which was the hardest?
The easiest to write for me was probably “Saltwater Souls” itself—the last short story in the collection. In ways, it feels like the most personal of all the stories. Which is both terrifying and exciting all at the same time. That one was the most cathartic for me to write, honestly, and I will always have a special place in my heart for Dorothea and Aggie.
The hardest—besides the ones that ended up getting cut because I could not make them work—would definitely be “Fins for Freedom”! Humor is so subjective, and getting the “twist” perfect was something that had to be tweaked and edited many times. The crumbs about what was actually going on had to be sprinkled throughout without causing the reader too much confusion, but in retrospect, the twist had to make sense, too. It was hard, but I hope I nailed it!
• What’s something you hope readers take away from reading your mermaid tales?
That’s a great question! And a long answer, because each story I feel has a different message. In a lot of them, though, heroines grapple with forgiveness: whether to forgive others, or themselves. Sometimes we can think others don’t deserve our mercy—or that we don’t deserve mercy for whatever we’ve done. But this goes against God’s mercy, and I wanted to showcase forgiveness while also acknowledging forgiveness isn’t easy, nor does it make everything perfect, but it is worth it.
Another big lesson is self-identity. Who are we? Most of my heroines struggle with trying to figure out who they are versus the things they’ve done in the past, things people have told them they are, and mental health struggles. I don’t have all the cut and dry answers for that—no one does—but it’s important that people take away the message that they are more than all of those. We are more than whatever cruel or thoughtless people have told us we are. We are more than what we were forced to do or what we think we were born to do. Who we are, who we choose to be, is both steady in our souls and new every day. And I want people to know that, whoever they are, they are not alone.
• For fun: If you were a mermaid, what color would your tail be?
Hmm…I’d have to go with a nice salmon color with hints of purple. Hopefully with lots of glitter, too!
Read Saltwater Souls Today!
E-book (99¢ this month), Hardcover, or Paperback
You can find Hannah on Instagram or her website.
Did you enjoy this author Q&A?
