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Traffick Blog Tour: Christa Desir Interviews Ellen Hopkins for #SVYALit
Today as part of the Traffick blog tour, author and #SVYALit Co-Creator Christa Desir (Other Broken Things coming in January 2016) is interviewing Ellen Hopkins for #SVYALit. You can find all of the #SVYALit posts here. And let me just take a moment to say thank you to Christa and Ellen for their time. Ellen […]
Today as part of the Traffick blog tour, author and #SVYALit Co-Creator Christa Desir (Other Broken Things coming in January 2016) is interviewing Ellen Hopkins for #SVYALit. You can find all of the #SVYALit posts here. And let me just take a moment to say thank you to Christa and Ellen for their time. Ellen Hopkins is hands down one of the most popular YA authors out there and I know that many of my teens are excited for a new book by their favorite author.
The sequel to “Tricks,” Hopkins’ latest book follows five teenage victims of sex trafficking — from all walks of life and gender orientations — as they try to extricate themselves from their current situations and find a new way of life.
CD: Tricks absolutely blew me away when I read it and I was so happy to see you continuing this story. Why did you feel compelled to revisit this now? Was it your readers or something you just felt ready for?
EH: Sequels often percolate in my head for years, and then suddenly they seem right. These five characters demanded closure eventually, and reader desire definitely had something to do with that.
CD: Trafficking is such a big feminist issue these days, with people planting their flags in both sides arguing both for and against “rescue missions” as it bumps up against sex worker rights. Tell me how you navigated this and what your research involved?
EH: I worked with vice, and also with a couple of rescue groups on the research end. One of those had a program where the survivors wrote poems or drew pictures representing their stories. Once you truly understand what’s at stake for trafficking victims, so many of whom are underage, it’s easy enough to know which side you’re on. I don’t see an argument when children are involved. They have no “rights” when it comes to this particular “business.”
CD: Your cast here is so diverse and came into sex work from so many different backgrounds, I’m curious about your decision to include such myriad stories and the challenge that put on you in terms of creating well-developed characters. Can you speak to that?
EH: Young people find themselves on the streets for many reasons, and I wanted to represent a range to illustrate various ways it can happen and hopefully break some stereotypes. Some do engage in sex work purposefully, but so many are coerced, and that coercion can come from fear, or love, or hopelessness, or addiction. So important to develop understanding, which hopefully will lead to empathy, for victims of sex trafficking, as well as to encourage their journey into survivorship.
CD: You’re an outspoken feminist and liberal. How much of your own politics inform your writing? In particular, I love how you’ve handled your LGBTQ characters in Traffick and I wonder if that’s because of your own advocacy or more because of the increasing relevance of the topic in YA (and frankly in US politics).
EH: Whether I’m writing characters like me, or unlike me, my politics will always inform my writing. I’m a devout advocate of equal rights for every population, and have been an LGBTQ ally for decades, which means way before it was “fashionable.” I’m extremely happy to see increasingly awareness and acceptance for those who have been marginalized, and to in some small ways influence future generations to continue the fight gives me deep satisfaction.
CD: You push hard in this book, crossing lines with sex, drugs, sexual identity that I imagine make the “clean YA” proponents a little squeamish. Tell me how you push against those who wonder if your content isn’t appropriate for teenagers. (I’m particularly interested in this because I find myself apologizing for my gritty books more than I’d like to).
EH: Whether or not people want to accept the idea that teens do drugs or have sex (straight, gay, or something else) or wind up turning tricks, the fact remains these issues touch young lives every day, everywhere. To not represent them in books is to pretend they’re isolated incidents, and they’re not. Better to investigate them safely between the pages and provide readers with the knowledge they need to make better choices. As authors, we must write honestly, or what’s the point? Teen readers are really quite sophisticated, and will close a book if it’s “too much.” I push back through dialogue, and with reader letters telling me how my books have positively impacted their lives. I keep files of them. Every one of my books represents truth, and censoring truth is shortsighted at best.
About The Book:
TRAFFICK (Tricks, #2)
By: Ellen Hopkins
Release Date: November 3, 2015
Pages: 528
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Five teens victimized by sex trafficking try to find their way to a new life in this riveting companion to the New York Times bestselling Tricks from Ellen Hopkins, author of Crank.
In her bestselling novel, Tricks, Ellen Hopkins introduced us to five memorable characters tackling these enormous questions: Eden, the preacher’s daughter who turns tricks in Vegas and is helped into a child prostitution rescue; Seth, the gay farm boy disowned by his father who finds himself without money or resources other than his own body; Whitney, the privileged kid coaxed into the life by a pimp and whose dreams are ruined in a heroin haze; Ginger, who runs away from home with her girlfriend and is arrested for soliciting an undercover cop; and Cody, whose gambling habit forces him into the life, but who is shot and left for dead.
And now, in Traffick, these five are faced with the toughest question of all: Is there a way out? How these five teenagers face the aftermath of their decisions and experiences is the soul of this story that exposes the dark, ferocious underbelly of the child trafficking trade. Heart wrenching and hopeful, Traffick takes us on five separate but intertwined journeys through the painful challenges of recovery, rehabilitation, and renewal to forgiveness and love. All the way home.
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About The Author:
Ellen Hopkins is a poet, freelance writer, and the award-winning author of twenty nonfiction titles and five NY Times Bestselling novels-in-verse. She has published hundreds of articles on subjects ranging from aviation to child abuse to winegrowing.
Ellen mentors other writers through her position as a regional adviser for the Nevada chapter of the Society of ChildrenÕs Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).
She is a regular speaker at schools; book festivals and writers conferences across the US, and now throughout the world.
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About Christa Desir, our interviewer:
Christa Desir is a YA author and rape victim advocate. Her YA novels, Fault Line and Bleed Like Me, are both honest and gutwrenching explorations of teens grappling with real world issues like rape (Fault Line) and cutting (Bleed Like Me). In January 2016 her next book, Other Broken Things, releases and it explores addiction in the life of a female boxer. I recently read a copy of Other Broken Things on Edelweiss and it has an engagingly authentic teen voice and I liked the way it honestly dealt with and talked about the topic of addiction. I highly recommend it.
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