In honour of Banned Books Week, Hypable speaks to Eleanor & Park author Rainbow Rowell about challenges to her work, and her new novel Fangirl.

Rainbow Rowell is the bestselling author of Eleanor & Park and Attachments, and her new novel Fangirl was recently released. But that isn’t what has had Rowell in the headlines recently, instead it is the challenge to Eleanor & Park, and the canceling of her planned speaking appearance in a Minnesota county.

Author interview: Rainbow Rowell

Hypable: What was your inspiration for ‘Fangirl’?

Rainbow Rowell: I think it started with the last Harry Potter movie. I’d been okay when the books ended because there were still movies to look forward to. But after the last Deathly Hallows movie came out, the Harry Potter ride was finally over, and I wasn’t ready for it. I went on a fandom bender, reading as much as fanfiction as I could.

And I started thinking about how different it is to be a fan of something now than it was when I was younger. I was writing fanfiction when I was a teenager, but I didn’t know to call it that, and I didn’t have anyone to share it with. I think if I’d had access to the Internet and the community of fandom, it would have changed my life. In good ways and bad. (The Internet really plays to my strengths and weaknesses.)

So that’s where Cath came from. She’s a writer who grew up inside fandom, and now she has to figure out how fandom fits in her life — or how everything else fits around it.

What are your own personal experiences with fandom?

Oh, I’ve always been someone who has extreme feelings about pop culture. If I like something, I probably love it — and if I love it, I can’t get enough. I’ve always used the things I love to identify myself. Like, “I love The Beatles. This is an important part of who I am.”

The first thing I was obsessively fannish about was Star Wars. I lived inside the Star Wars universe during grade school. My friend and I used to make up adventures. She’d get to be Princess Leia — because she had dark hair and her own toy lightsaber. And I’d be her cousin — the lesser Princess Leah.

As I got older it was the X-Men, Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, Wham!, Star Wars again, Dawson’s Creek, Harry Potter…

I sort of missed the beginning of Internet fandom because it happened when I was having my kids. I feel like I’m making up for lost time now.

How does it feel knowing that there is a Rainbow Rowell fandom?

Wow. I don’t think that’s a real thing.

But it’s incredible to know that people are connecting to my books — and connecting in a way that’s inspiring them to make their own art and tell their own stories. The most wonderful thing that’s happened to me as an author is fan art. It blows my mind completely.

‘Fangirl’ contains very nuanced portrayals of mental illness and also learning disabilities. Why do you think so much YA treats these issues as taboo or in a superficial manner?

Thank you.

Well, I think it’s probably society that treats those issues as taboo — because they’re so hard. And if you’re a sensitive person, you don’t want to mischaracterize those experiences. It would be terrible to write about someone with a mental illness and feel like you got it wrong. Like you hurt readers who were dealing with that issue.

I didn’t plan out how to write about mental illness or learning disabilities in Fangirl, but I wrote from my own experience and from the experiences of people close to me. Three of the people in my innermost circle have difficulty reading books. So when Cath is talking to Levi and saying, “How are you so smart, but you can’t read a book?” — I’m thinking about smart people in my own life and the conversations we’ve had.

Your work has been the target of book banning. As this is Banned Books Week, what are your thoughts on the censorship of your work?

My book, Eleanor & Park, is being challenged in a Minnesota county right now. It was chosen for the optional summer reading program in the Anoka-Hennepin school district, and I was supposed to visit school and public libraries this week. But a few parents managed to have my visits canceled and have requested that the book be removed from libraries.

At first I was shocked. I saw the parents’ report on Eleanor & Park and didn’t even recognize it as my book. Their main objection was to the profanity, which is definitely there, but you’d have to take those words so far out of context to think the book itself is obscene or pornographic. Eleanor & Park is about two kids trying to rise above violence and cruelty.

So I was upset that they were deliberately misreading it, that their complaints affected my visit even to a public library — and especially that they were using my book to undermine the work of librarians and libraries.

The high school librarians who chose Eleanor & Park care about their students. They’re educated and thoughtful. They should be trusted to do their jobs.

Given the depiction of a (fictional) homosexual relationship in ‘Fangirl’, there could be some challenges to this book as well. And yet, ‘Fangirl’ was chosen as the first book in Tumblr’s official book club. How do you balance these opposing reactions?

You know, no one has objected to the gay characters in Fangirl yet. So I’m not going to worry about it. I mean…I can’t let myself worry too much about any of this. I just have to write the books that are in my head and try to make them feel real and true.

What do you find easiest to write, the first or the last line of a book?

The last. So far, all of my last lines have come to me very naturally. But I always suffer over the whole first chapter. I often end up cutting the first chunk of paragraphs and starting later. (I cut the first 10,000 words of Eleanor & Park.)

What do you hope readers take away from this book?

I hope that they enjoy it. That it resonates with them. That Cath feels real to them and that they care about her. I hope that they root for Levi.

Fangirl is definitely my love letter to fandom and fanfiction and fiction; it’s the book where I try to explain what it feels to be a writer. And I think I tried to say things about falling in love for the first time, and establishing your identity separate from your family.

But, ultimately, I just want readers to get sucked into the story and stay there until they finish.