Rachel Howzell Hall
Rachel Howzell Hall is the critically acclaimed author and Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist for And Now She’s Gone. A New York Times bestselling author of The Good Sister with James Patterson, Rachel is an Anthony, International Thriller Writers and Left Award nominee and the author of They All Fall Down, Land of Shadows, Skies of Ash, Trail of Echoes and City of Saviors in the Detective Elouise Norton series. She is a past member of the board of directors for Mystery Writers of America and has been a featured writer on NPR’s acclaimed Crime in the City series and the National Endowment for the Arts weekly podcast; she has also served as a mentor in Pitch Wars and the Association of Writers Programs. Rachel lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.
Twitter: @RachelHowzell
Instagram: @RHowzellHall
Favorite non-reading activity?
I love playing video games – I immerse myself in big world games like Fallout 4, Witcher and Skyrim. There’s great story, looting treasure chests and barrels, improving armor and weapons, and wandering to places on the map that await discovery. For me to spend hours playing, though, the user interface must make sense – I don’t want to squint to see my weapon stats. I don’t want to seek the internet for ways to power up. Like reading a book, I’ll put a game down quick if I can’t slip into it after a few hours of play. I’d rather re-play an old game that I’ve enjoyed.
Have you ever experienced Imposter Syndrome?
Certainly! I think most writers experience Imposter Syndrome. I’m doing something that I love: writing. And it comes easy for me (relatively speaking, and when I compare myself against other people who don’t find writing easy at all). And because I love doing it, and it comes easy, sometimes I wonder if I’m doing it right. If my stories are interesting, if that sentence that people love… Is it really that great? And since it takes me several drafts to complete a novel (knowing that the story needs even more work and another five drafts), I really do get the Syndrome. Because if I was so great, why do I need to write so many drafts? But then, I talk with my writing friends, and hear their woes and worries, and I listen to the gossip, and I sigh with relief because I learn that this one writer, the one I’ve always suspected to be an imposter? Actually is an imposter. Ha.
Vacation druthers… City or Rural destination? Why?
Anywhere but home – and then, in a hotel. Going on vacation in the American fashion (i.e., once a year for no more than 10 days because that’s what we do) means that I don’t want to spend my precious time cooking, making beds, folding towels. That’s my job at home. I’m not paying thousands of dollars to make my own bed. If it’s summertime, I love places near the water. I’m from LA and I’m just a few miles from the ocean – but I need a beach that I can’t see from my house. And I’m drinking a very good cocktail that costs too much if I’d ordered it at one of my favorite restaurants at home. There is a book on my lap, digital or print—and it will be one of three that I get through in my ten-day vacation allowance.
What do you worry about?
I worry about running out of gas and having nothing to write—not because there isn’t a subject I want to write about, but because I don’t have the fortitude to do it. I worry about my daughter’s safety as she goes to college and lives away from me for the first time in our lives. I worry about the state of our country, but not because it’s changed—as a Black woman, I’ve always held my breath in America—but because I’m told to worry, and that my level of worry is not worried enough. During one of his most famous radio interviews, writer James Baldwin said, “A complex thing can’t be made simple.” And I worry that so many complex things are being boiled down to, “Vote,” or “Give them houses,” or “Just don’t have sex, then.” Nothing’s ever simple.
What brings you great joy?
Being with my family on vacation brings me joy. We work so hard during the year and to see us wearing shorts, smelling like sunscreen, looking golden under the sun and smiling… Makes all the worry worth it.
