Gin Hammond

Gin Hammond is an award-winning Harvard University/Moscow Art Theatre grad, as well as an actor, playwright, director, and author.  She has performed onstage both nationally and internationally and received grants from Allied Arts, Artist Trust, 4 Culture, the NEA and others.  She also works as a voice teacher, dialect coach, and voice-over artist, and is known for her work in video games such as DotA II, BattleTech, Undead Labs, and is doing motion capture for an upcoming, under-wraps game for Sony/Sucker Punch.  Gin is the author of the historical fiction novel, Returning the Bones, co-founder of Meditations for Actors (MFA), a meditation app specifically for actors, and she lives with her husband, son, cat, and chickens in Washington State.

Facebook: @returningthebones

Instagram: @returningthebones

Not all books are for all readers ... when you start a book and you just don't like it, how long do you read until you bail? 

I don't want to jinx myself with this, but if I'm reading, I can make it through chapter two before deciding to bail.  That said, I might peek at future chapters to see if the story finds its groove later on.  If I'm listening to an audiobook, however, I can only listen to a page before bailing if the reader is doing anything unhealthy with their voice. I'm a voice teacher and can't bear the frustration of not being able to help the performer!

Is there a work of art that you love?  Why?  Have you ever visited it in person? 

I love John Singer Sargant's life-sized painting, El Jaleo.  It's an 8 by 12-foot painting of a flamenco dancer and her musicians, and you can hear it as soon as you see it - the heels clicking, the hands clapping, the guitars. The dancer is really feeling herself, like she's grounded in the fact that her talent is otherworldly.  There's also a feeling of danger to it too.  It's the middle of the night and there is a faint smattering of either blood or paint on the walls.  Even the way she leans back feels reckless, as though she's daring gravity to take her down. The women in red on the far right of the scene are clearly inspired by this woman's power and skill. It's at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and I camped out by it for so long that I think I made the security guards a bit uneasy.
 

Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? 

Yes, I am also an actor and director.  My novel, Returning the Bones, started as a play.  There are so many delicious stories I could not include in the play, since it's a time-based medium, so I was thrilled at being able to indulge in multiple storylines in the novel and to make them as vividly detailed as I wanted.

If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme? 

I would love to curate a museum exhibition on Black cowgirls!  I bet there are so many undiscovered stories and pictures just waiting to be found.

What brings you joy? 

Hard work paying off; e.g. lots of book sales!