The Nerd Daily recently had the pleasure of chatting with Rhiannon Wilde, author of the upcoming release Henry Hamlet’s Heart, a queer YA romance set in Brisbane that details one guy’s hilarious yet heartbreaking journey of first love. We got to ask Rhiannon about her writing process, her imaginary movie soundtrack and so much more!
You can find Rhiannon at her website and on Instagram!
Hi, Rhiannon! Thanks for joining us! Why don’t you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello! I’m a writer and former high school English teacher from Brisbane who likes wearing bright colours and making jokes in formal contexts.
Lightning round: what was the first book you ever remember reading, the first one you fell head over heels in love with and one that you cannot stop thinking about?
The very first book I can remember reading was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I memorised every word and would dramatically recite it to my dog.
First book I fell head over heels in love with: the Lemony Snicket’s series as a pre-teen. I remember just feeling so excited by how original and clever they were.
A book I can’t stop thinking about: Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. Brilliant, in all of the ways, especially the very last line.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
I’m fairly boring day-to-day! I drink a lot of coffee and read a lot of books. I also love spending time with my friends and getting out in #nature.
What’s the best and worst writing advice you’ve ever gotten?
The best writing advice I’ve ever gotten is the old adage ‘the first draft of everything is shit.’ It might sound cliché, but I find that giving myself that freedom of not having to be perfect is usually where the very best stuff comes from.
The worst is probably anything to do with really rigid planning! I so admire people who do, but it just isn’t how my brain is wired. For better or worse, I have to be able to sit and stare into the void while characters and scenes jump out in whichever order they like.
Now tell us about Henry Hamlet’s Heart! What can readers expect?
Henry Hamlet’s Heart is a queer YA romance about best friends, which follows the coming-of-age journey of a lovably awkward guy about to graduate high school, who is trying to figure out all the things. Readers can (hopefully) expect to both laugh and cry. Then I’ve done my job!
Henry Hamlet’s Heart won the Queensland Literary Awards Glendower Award! Walk us through the process of what it was like to win the award for your debut novel!
It was definitely a bit of an unorthodox one! I had thought I’d go down the track of trying to get an agent and was headed down that path, when I saw the Queensland Literary Awards web submission page for unpublished manuscripts by chance one afternoon. I attached the first draft of Henry Hamlet’s Heart, which I’d finished in a whirlwind about four months before, then promptly dismissed it as something I’d never win.
A couple of months later I got a call saying I had been shortlisted and was excited, but still pretty certain it wasn’t a thing that would happen. Then another month passed, and I got an email while I was on recess duty saying HHH was the winner of its category – and a publishing contract.
I made a speech at the awards night and tried not to faint, then met my publisher and editor a few weeks later. They are both incredible and genuinely loved the story and characters from the get-go. We started on the edit mid-Covid-lockdown last year, and it’s been the most joyfully steep learning curve I’ve ever had.
There are so many moments of friendship, love and heartbreak between Lennon and Henry in this book. Without spoiling too much, which ones were your favorite to write? Which ones proved a challenge?
I’m going to be a bit cryptic, because I have little nerdy (pun intended) names for my favourite scenes. My top faves to write between the boys were probably The Stars Scene AKA The Cricket Pitch Scene, The Gallery Scene and school camp. Also, what we called The Gatsby Sequence, because I loved weaving Henry’s internal freak-out into his studying of TGG.
There’s a scene where Henry drives alone over the Story Bridge which was quite hard to write in terms of it being a true heartbreak moment for him.
Most properly challenging was probably Cane Family Dinner, as it’s the culmination of the character arc of Len’s Dad, John. I read a lot of psychological-themed fiction and non-fiction books and interviewed people in my life with difficult parental figures, before John let me fully know him. Then I had to try to tie everything together, from Henry’s confused perspective. Fun times!
I adored the early 2000s vibes in this book – the atmospheric description of that era was amazing! What is one thing you love about that time period and one thing or trend you don’t miss at all?
Aw, yay! Me too.
One specific thing I really love about that time period is just the simplicity of it. My editor, Felicity, is around my age, so we had a lot of fun bringing back all the wholesome teen things we used to do – painstakingly downloading music onto an iPod classic, playing Snake on a flip phone, reading your friends’ MySpace bulletins to see if you got a mention, and being able to dress terribly.
On that note, a thing I don’t miss at all is emo hair. In 2008 I dyed mine black and cut the back so short the hairdresser had to use clippers. It was a look, but in a very real sense – it was Not A Look.
If Henry Hamlet’s Heart were to be turned into a movie, which songs from the early aughts would have to be on the soundtrack?
Ahh so many!
- This Is How I Disappear – My Chemical Romance
- A good amount of Panic! at the Disco would be a must
- Run – Snow Patrol
- Hum Hallelujah – Fall Out Boy
- Over My Head – The Fray
- Leona Lewis’ Bleeding Love, obviously
- Tattoo by Jordin Sparks
- Some sneaky early Adele.
- There’s a fabulous version of ‘Not Pretty Enough’ by Tiny Little Houses.
- To throw way way back, *NSYNC’s Bye Bye Bye is a favourite of mine, for reasons.
- And I’d love to have a gritty acoustic cover of ‘Complicated’ by Avril Lavigne. That’s my dream.
I’ve actually made a playlist in honour of Henry Hamlet’s Heart, I couldn’t resist! You can check it out here.
With Henry Hamlet’s Heart releasing soon, are you already working on another project? If so, care to share a bit about it with us?
I am, actually! I’m currently knee-deep in my second YA novel, a gothic mystery about sisters who live on a cliff by the sea. It’s kind of Sherlock Holmes X Wuthering Heights with Taylor Swift’s evermore as the soundtrack. There are themes of mental illness, two romance sub-plots including an F/F queer one – and maybe one ghost.
Last but not least, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Oh wow, so many again! I just finished Jessie Stephens’ narrative nonfiction Heartsick and thought it was an amazing debut. Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal by Anna Whateley is a queer YA story with an original voice I adored. Gary Lonesborough’s YA The Boy From The Mish because it’s raw and lovely. Our Year of Maybe by Rachel Lynn Solomon because it features a beautiful friendship and bi male character. I recommend Shannon Molloy’s memoir Fourteen to anyone who hasn’t read it, because it’s so well-written and everyone should. Ditto Sally Rooney’s Normal People, which is truly even better than the hype. And last but definitely not least, Maggie Stiefvater’s magical The Raven Cycle.
