Welcome back to The Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe, a recurring series here on Tor.com featuring some of our favorite science fiction and fantasy authors, artists, and others!
Today we’re joined by Shannon Hale, who started writing books at age ten and never stopped, eventually earning an MFA in Creative Writing. Shannon is the New York Times best-selling author of nine children’s and young adult novels, including multiple award winners The Goose Girl, Book of a Thousand Days, and Newbery Honor recipient Princess Academy. Her latest novel, Dangerous, is available March 4th from Bloomsbury. You can read an excerpt here on Tor.com. She also penned three books for adults, beginning with Austenland, which is now a major motion picture starring Keri Russell. Shannon co-wrote the hit graphic novels Rapunzel’s Revenge and Calamity Jack with husband Dean Hale. They live with their four small children near Salt Lake City, Utah.
Join us as we cover subjects ranging from tap dancing to Abraham Lincoln, and more!
Please relate one fact about yourself that has never appeared anywhere else in print or on the Internet.
I once tap-danced on a table top in a basement bar in Montana with the writer Larry Brown. I was sober.
If you could be incarnated as any historical figure, who would you like to be?
Probably someone who could actually dance. I’ll get on the table, but I just don’t have the skills to back that action up.
Here’s a two-parter: If you could go back in time and change one thing in the past, what would it be? And if you could time travel to the future, who or what would you most like to see?
Save Abraham Lincoln. I’m still real grumpy about the mess Andrew Johnson made of things.
The future scares me. The dystopian stories feel way to possible. Maybe I’d take a peek at my kids as adults. My kids are cool. There are four of them, which still astounds me. How did I make four humans?
If you could choose your own personal theme music to play every time you enter a room, what would you pick?
Clearly the theme from Shaft. It just feels true.
Bad news: You’re about to be marooned alone on a desert island—name the five things you would bring along.
For a romantic artist, I’m so painfully practical. Water purifier, cell phone with solar recharger, awesome survival tent. I’d bring my husband because he’s good company, but he gets grumpy when he’s hungry. I guess for my fifth I could bring an endless supply of food. Well, if I’m going there, then a helicopter with pilot. Jet pack. Cruise ship. Space elevator…
