A Book Lover Interview: Hailey Huntington

    Hello! I'm so excited to feature Hailey Huntington on my blog today, fellow book lover, writer, and founder of the small business Ink Drinker Book Boxes. It was so much fun connecting with her and I hope you enjoy reading her answers!

    I have slightly interviewed the interview to make it easier to read, without changing any of the author's answers. This is my twelfth interview overall, which is saying a lot considering this blog hasn't celebrated a full year yet! To see all of the interviews I've done in the past, including ones with Jen Calonita, Christopher Healy, and Kaley Rhea, click HERE.

Behind the Boxes: An Interview With Hailey Huntington

February 17, 2021

For those who don’t know, what is a book box, and why did you choose to make your own? How did the Ink Drinker Book Box project start?

So a book box is a box (big surprise there 😉) that features a novel and several fun swag items. The type of items will vary from box to box, of course, as well as from company to company. Some companies feature swag items that are related to the book or other popular books in that genre. The items featured in the Ink Drinker Book Boxes are drawn directly from the novel and correspond to a page number in it.

Ink Drinker basically started as a school project. I’m in the Young Writers Workshop Author program, and part of the training covered in Year One is business training, in preparation for future marketing of books, and also to expose students to the possibility of pursuing the path of an “authorpreneur”. The main component of the business training is starting your own small business.

I tossed around several ideas of what I could do for my “pop-up” business and suddenly came up with the idea of doing a book box company. I’ve always found the idea of book boxes so fun, but never purchased one. I’m a selective reader and am careful about what content I read, so I’ve always been wary of the idea of purchasing a book box without knowing what novel would be inside, and what content could be on its pages. So I decided to make a book box company for readers like me.

What’s your favorite part about putting the Ink Drinker book boxes together?

Hmm… this is a tricky one!

I guess that my favorite part is probably coming up with the items for the boxes. It is definitely tricky at times, and not all novels have items that can be pulled out of them, but it is super fun to come up with the items and then get/make them and watch the boxes come together.

I also love it when people post pictures of their boxes. It makes me so happy!

Why did you choose Nadine Brandes’ Fawkes and Jonathan Auxier’s Sweep to feature in your current book boxes?

I love both Fawkes and Sweep! They’re such great stories and are among my favorite books.

Also, like I said above, I take the Ink Drinker swag items directly out of the book, and some books lend themselves to items more easily than others. Fawkes and Sweep both had some really fun things that I was able to pull out of the books.

As well as a reader, you’re also a writer! How did you start to write, and what are you currently working on?

While I haven’t always been writing down stories, I’ve always been making them up. I’d make up elaborate plots and backstories for my characters when my brother and I played with LEGOs. I’d entertain myself during car rides by playing out a story in my head. So while I don’t have the classic writer story of writing books since I was little, I’ve always been creating stories.

I really started writing my freshman year of high school. I did the One Year Adventure Novel course and wrote a novella in a semester. That inspired me so much. I realized that writing was something I love and something that I could do. After that though, writing fell to the wayside over the summer, but I started writing short stories in the Fall. In 2018, I did NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the first time and completed my first full-length novel. That was huge for my writing, and I really started taking it seriously.

Since then, I’ve written a bunch more short stories and have now completed four novels. I am currently working on my fifth, which is a reimagining of Howard Pyle’s The Story of King Arthur and His Knights. Right now, I am working on a synopsis and outline for the story and hope to start drafting it by the beginning of March.

I won’t share the entire concept with you because it could still get changed a little bit, but here’s a teaser for you:

Camelot is being destroyed from within.

An advisor who wants more. An unfaithful soon-to-be queen. A scorned half-sister. A divided Round Table. And a peasant girl involved with them all. They may know her secrets, but she is determined to come out on top.

Whose scheme will win? And what will befall Camelot and her king?

Who are your top three favorite authors?

Oof. This is a hard one. Probably Nadine Brandes, Jennifer A. Nielsen, and Lindsay A. Franklin.

What are your top three favorite books/book series?

An even harder question! 😄 Well, aside from the amazing books by the ladies listed above,

-The Ascendence Series by Jennifer A. Nielsen (yes, I listed her above, which means that these books are technically already included, but they are so good that they get their own special mention)

-The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis

-Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster (which is featured in an Ink Drinker box! 😉)

If you had to pick one type of dessert or candy to describe yourself, what would you pick? Why?

Hmm…. maybe SweetTarts? Firstly, they’re one of my favorite candies. Secondly, they’re both sweet and tart, which kind of represents my personality? I like to think of myself as a kind and sweet person, but I’ve got a little bit of spunk and sass to me. 😄

Do you have a favorite genre to read in? Write in?

Speculative fiction! I am a huge spec fic fan, for both reading and writing. But if I want to be a little more specific than the general term of speculative fiction, fantasy is my favorite. I also have a huge weakness for fairytale retellings.

What’s your opinion on books being turned into movies or TV shows?

I’m always a little leery of books turned into movies and TV shows. It has to be well done.

I also think that the producers have to understand the characters. My family watched a TV show that was based off of a beloved book, and it deviated from the plot of the book a bit. Like the bookworm I am, I was a bit miffed about this, but my sister pointed out that even though it deviated from the book, it still felt cohesive with the book to an extent. The characters were still true to their book-form, and so the deviated plot still felt like it fit with the plot of the book since the characters hadn’t really changed.

But I also think that readers need to go into movies and TV shows that are off of books with a less critical mindset. We expect them to use the book as the script, which, while it would be nice, is probably a little unrealistic. We’re also annoyed when the characters don’t look like how we envisioned them, but everyone sees characters differently in their mind. The actors are simply how the producers envisioned the characters.

Who are some characters in books that you’ve admired or related to the most? Why?

Jo March from Little Women is one of the first that comes to mind. Jo and I both love our families fiercely. We’re both writers and readers. We both have a little bit of a dramatic side. Honestly, I see a lot of myself in Jo March.

Another character I resonate a lot with is Parvin Blackwater from Nadine Brandes’ Out of Time series. Her story and arc also inspire me. Parvin is also such a human-feeling character—her thoughts and everything are so realistic. Nadine is such an amazing writer.

As a reader what draws you into enjoying a story? Why?

In my opinion, characters are super important to the story. Honestly, if a book had a weak plot but characters that I resonated with and that had great voices, I’d probably still read it. Characters voices are also one of my favorite parts of characters. Snarky character voices are my favorite. 😊

Also, aside from a great plot and awesome characters, I love when authors dive into the worldbuilding of their setting. I love it when the world feels so much larger than the story, and that if you could find a way to crawl into the book and enter the story world, you’d find so much more to explore.

As a reader, what turns you off from enjoying a story?

Content that I’m uncomfortable with definitely stops me from enjoying a story. I also don’t enjoy stories when I can’t connect with the characters. If I’m not invested in the characters, I’m not going to care about the plot as much.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing or reading?

I love spending time with my family, whether that’s talking, playing board games, going for a bike ride, or something else. I also enjoy doing puzzles and playing piano and violin.

What do you think makes a good story?

There’s a lot that goes into making a good story, but to try and keep this short and pithy: the components of a good story are a gripping plot, vivid characters, and resonating themes. That’s a lot to try and live up to in a story, and I know I don’t always hit those marks, but it’s what I aim for.

As a child what did you want to do when you grew up?

The first thing I can remember wanting to be was a veterinarian. Then I realized that, while I love animals, science and biology are not my thing. 😂

What's your favorite season? Why?

Fall! In my opinion, fall has the perfect temperatures, and the colors of the changing leaves are so pretty!

Do you have an overflowing TBR list?

Yes… and no.

I don’t have a physical TBR. It’s more like a list of books that people have recommended that I really want to read someday. But yeah, that list is preeetttyyyy long… and still growing. 😥 Plus, there are all the books I want to reread…

Yeah, I guess I’ve got an overflowing TBR.

What are your hopes for the future Ink Drinker book boxes?

I would like to be able to feature new releases in the Ink Drinker boxes. I also think that it would be really fun to maybe work with indie authors at some point since featuring their novels would help them gain more exposure.

An idea I’d also possibly implement in the future is releasing two boxes at a time, one with a YA novel and the other with an MG novel, rather than the current one box at a time. Right now, I’m rotating between YA and MG, but it would be fun to be able to do both at the same time.

Do you have any advice for readers struggling to find good books to read?

Don’t give up on reading. I know that it can be so, so discouraging to feel like there aren’t any good books out there, but don’t give up hope. Keep looking for good books. Find book content review websites (one of my favorites is https://redeemedreader.com/). Watch Christian publishing houses and authors for new releases (for my fellow spec fic fans, Enclave Publishing is a great Christian speculative fiction house).

If you’ve read a number of books by an author and they’ve all been clean, maybe read the rest of their books (with caution, of course). Nowadays, I feel like clean YA books can be the hardest to find, so maybe consider reading some middle-grade novels for a change. You might find that you really love that age range! Also, you can try reading older novels. Things that are acceptable in books now weren’t back then, so they tend to be cleaner.

Also, reread the books that you love. I personally love rereading books. I get to revisit the characters, who feel like old friends, and go on adventures with them all over again. And rereading those books can help you to remember why you love reading so much, even when you’re struggling with the discouragement of finding things to read.

    Thanks for joining me for this special blog post! If you're interested in finding more about Hailey, you can check out her website, or follow her on Instagram. Of course, if you want to learn more about Ink Drinker Book Boxes or order one, take a look at the awesome website!

    As always, if you want to suggest a post request, feel free to! Please look at my Review Policy page and/or my past posts and make sure your idea lines up with the ones I'm looking for. If you have any questions, of course, feel free to comment below.

    Next week, I'll be featuring another historical fiction read.