Sarah Henning describes herself as a “recovering journalist” but she has achieved the dream and transitioned from her job as a sports journalist to an accomplished author. After the successes of her Sea Witch series, Henning brings us a YA contemporary wonder in the shape of Throw Like a Girl. Full of powerful female characters and an understanding of the world of highschool sports that is so seamless you feel like you are part of the team, Throw Like a Girl was the story I didn’t know I needed in my life.
Throw Like a Girl will hit shelves on January 7th 2020 and I had the pleasure of talking with Sarah in depth about her upcoming release, her transition from journalist to author and even got a sneak peak at her next book!
You can find Sarah on Twitter and Instagram, along with at her website.
Hi Sarah! Can you tell us a little about yourself?
Hi! Thanks so much for having me! I’m a former sports journalist turned YA author whose latest book, Throw Like a Girl, drops January 7th. It’s my first contemporary—my debut Sea Witch and its sequel, Sea Witch Rising are both (obviously) fantasy—and I consider it my love letter to my time in sports journalism. When I’m not writing, I’m probably running, lifting weights, or hanging out with my two kids and husband. Other important things about me, considering the subject matter of this interview: I’m a huge fan of Chiefs football, Jayhawks basketball, Rafael Nadal, and the USA Gymnastics team.
What was your elevator pitch to describe Throw Like a Girl?
Throw Like a Girl is about a down-spiraling softball player who is recruited to play the not-so-back-up quarterback on her ex-boyfriend’s football team.
What inspired you to write Throw Like a Girl? Do you have a background in any particular sport perhaps?
I was a competitive gymnast and then moved into running—track, cross-country, and just for fun. I was never elite in any of those sports, but I loved to be active and still do. Throughout my childhood, I also was drawn to learning all I could about elite athletes in any sport. I read every book at the library, consumed the sports section of our local newspaper, watched ESPN specials. You know those five-minute vignettes during the Olympics about an athlete’s journey to that very moment on the world’s biggest stage? I drank that stuff up. In college, I started covering sports as a journalist, working for The Associated Press and other news outlets. I did everything—track, baseball, basketball, golf, tennis, and, of course, football. In my professional career, I cut my teeth working sports desks in North Eastern Pennsylvania and South Florida, both of which treat high school football as king, and it had a profound effect, I suppose.
I was years removed from covering live sports when I got the idea for Throw Like a Girl one day while on a run, a few weeks after having my second child. I’d been up late watching the Kansas City Royals playing post-season baseball (which has been a very rare occurrence in my life, let’s be honest), when the idea popped in my head of writing about a softball player who makes a huge-ass mistake, and while seeking penance at a new school, is recruited to play quarterback. I sprinted home, wrote down the whole pitch and first few pages, and never looked back.
You have a background as a sports journalist. How did you transition from journalism to becoming an author?
I always wanted to be an author. But at some point, I decided that being a journalist was more practical. I immediately gravitated toward sports journalism, because, as I’ve said, I was an athlete and I’ve always been a sucker for stories about athletes working hard and making their dreams come true. There’s built-in conflict, climax, and resolution—the elation of victory or the agony of defeat.
I loved covering real people and telling real stories, but at some point I couldn’t ignore the fact that I really wanted to write full-blown, novel-length fiction. That’s the thing about dreams—even when you move on to what seems practical and try lock them away for the duration, they fight back. So, after I had my first child, I started writing again. I sold my first book, Sea Witch, when he was six. It was a long road but I think it’s been the right road for me.
Throw Like a Girl is a very different genre to your other works. What made you want to venture into a different genre?
Honestly, it wasn’t that I ventured into it—I actually wrote Throw Like a Girl and my debut fantasy, Sea Witch, in almost the same timeline. And they are very different books. But they both interested me so much that I could let either go.
I just want to tell stories and I’ve been lucky enough not to be bound to a certain genre. Though I know it would be easier for marketing, I don’t want to be pigeonholed into a particular genre brand. Would you believe that though my background is in sports journalism, I landed my first agent writing adult crime fiction? Yep. That’s a far cry from young adult fantasy and contemporary, but I love those shelved manuscripts just as much as I love the ones that have “made it.”
Seriously, I just love writing the stories that come for my throat and won’t let go. The ones I’m passionate about and just compelled to tell. Finding those stories is what’s fun for me.
That said, I do think all of my books have a thread of commonality in that I’m interested in scenarios where female characters are challenging stereotypes form within male-dominated spaces. It’s not a coincidence that I have books titled with the words “witch” “girl” “princess”—I don’t want to downplay what makes any of my main characters special. I want to play to their strengths and be proud of it.
Who is your favourite character in the book and why?
Ughhhh. Why do you ask? It’s like picking between my kids! I really do love all of them. I love my main character, Liv, because she’s a snarky badass who gives it her all every single time. I love her siblings, Ryan and Danielle, and the way they support one another. I love her best friend, Addie, for her sense of self and confidence. Grey is everything I wanted in a high school boyfriend, and Jake has determination and loyalty tattooed on his bones.
What is your writing style? Do you plan everything out before starting writing or are you more a “as it happens” author?
I’m actually a hybrid of a plotter (planner) and a “pantser” (“as it happens”). I usually know the big plot points of the story I’m going to tell and then if things take a left turn between plot points, I go with it. I always feel like if I’m surprised, my reader will be too. That said, I’m to the point in my career where my agent and editors are expecting to see things more planned out, and so I’ve become much more of a plotter in the last couple of years. Now, I typically have the first act pretty tightly plotted and the climax through denouement before I even start seriously writing and then I fill in from there.
This book is set in a high school. If you could give your high school self a piece of advice, what would it be?
Keep your eyes on your own page. Not that I was cheating—I wasn’t! I just mean that I was very caught up in what everyone else was doing. It took me a very long time to realize that it didn’t matter who had what or did what or said what. I could carve my own path and ultimately none of it matters as long as you do you.
Honestly, this is good advice to my current self too. As authors it becomes very easy to become jealous of the support or money or whatever someone else is getting from the same house. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. You just have to write the best book you can write for you.
Your next book, The Princess Will Save You, is expected July 2020. Can you give us a little teaser?
Yes! Throw Like a Girl and The Princess Will Save You are exactly seven months apart—January 7th and July 7th! It’s basically a gender-swapped take on The Princess Bride. Instead of the commoner true love going to rescue a kidnapped princess, the princess goes after her true love, a stable boy, when he’s kidnapped by pirates as part of a plot to force her hand into marriage.
Lastly, what book recommendations do you have for us?
If you’re in the mood for more swoony contemporary in 2020, may I recommend Amanda Sellet’s By The Book, which comes out May 12th. It’s a hilarious story of a book-lover named Mary who begins dishing out love advice based on classic novels with disastrous results.
