A U T H O R' S     L I F E 

Kristin Hannah was born in California in 1960. When she was eight years old, her family moved to Washington state. From an early age, she had no intentions of becoming a writer, so she chose to go to school to become an attorney. Hannah graduated from University of Washington with a B.A. degree in Communications and has a degree in law from University of Puget Sound Law School. With her education, she decided to practice law in Seattle. She was an attorney for several years. 

In 1986, Kristin Hannah got married to her husband, Benjamin Hannah. During her pregnancy she became bedridden and decided to try writing. She then quickly began to fall in love with the art of writing. Her mother was a big influence in her becoming an author. During Hanna‘s third year of law school, her mom was diagnosed with cancer. Her mother always really enjoyed Hannah’s writing. Kristin Hannah liked to read romance novels the most, and she shared that interest with her mom.

In 1991, Kristin Hannah published her first novel and became an American writer. Her first novel was named “Handful of Heaven,” which is currently out of print. In 1993, she transitioned from her career as an attorney to a full-time writer because of the passion she so deeply fell in love with. Through her time of being an author, Kristin Hannah has grown to love the style of writing historical fiction. What inspired Hannah to write historical fiction is that her friend‘s father went missing in action during the Vietnam war. This had a lasting impact on her and her friend.

Because Kristin Hannah wrote many marvelous novels, she gained both achievements and recognition for such artistry and storytelling. Hannah is an award winning bestselling author.  She highly recognizes women’s history in her writing. Hannah believes that women’s side of the story should get to be told despite history, ignoring the beautiful perseverance through hardships and the discipline from society.

Kristin Hannah‘s first major award was the People’s Choice Award for Best Fiction for her novel, “The Nightingale,” in 2015. Another significant award she gained that year was Goodreads Best Historical Fiction award for “The Nightingale.” Other significant recognition Kristen Hanna has received include numerous New York Times number one bestsellers, significant book clubs and media selections. She has written over 20 novels and most of them are translated in over 30 languages. Netflix has also recognized the art of Kristin Hannah’s writing, and they have based a Netflix series off of a well known book of hers, Firefly. 

One of her most recognized novels is a historical fiction, The Nightingale. It took Kristen Hanna up to around two years to write the novel. She was inspired by a story from World War II of a Belgian woman who helped downed Allied airmen by creating an escape route. Though The Nightingale is fiction, a lot of details resemble the true accounts from the Belgian woman’s story.  The Nightingale was considered a best selling book. This novel also had over 4.5 million copies sold, along with it being translated in over 43 different languages. Kristin Hannah is very proud of her work and is determined to continue creating touching stories that allows people not only to learn about unspoken history, but create emotional connections.

Kristin Hannah is an American commercial writer.  Her books typically have themes that include nature and environment, female courage, the lessons we pass on to the next generation, and the beauty and tragedy of human nature. Along with themes, she also drives her attention to creating perfect messages that connect with the audience and symbolize deeper meanings. Hannah focuses on creating messages when writing her works, not only because she wants to evoke emotion and engagement within her audience, but educate them so they can learn the beauty in some of the unwritten stories in history. When blocking the plot of a story, Hannah dives into the backstory of each of the characters and how it’s going to persuade the perception of them throughout the book. 

In Kristin Hannah’s writing style, she introduces characters through conversation. She believes that the most important component of creating characters is dialogue. When approaching a field of interest, Hannah wants to write about, she spends time learning about the details: time period, setting, social issues, street wear (typical clothing), behavior of leaders. What peaks her interest the most is intricate relationships between women, women’s history, and women’s stories in general. Because of Kristin Hannah’s relationship with her mother, she tends to write with some sort of mother daughter connection or the absence of a mother figure in her stories. Furthermore, Kristin Hannah loves her stories thriving in conflict; she has multiple intertwining conflicts throughout her novels. 

“I learn who my characters are by what they have to say and what they think and believe to be true about the choices that make sense to them.” - Kristin Hannah

Hannah loves writing because she gets to learn about so much more than what was taught to her in school. She can create visceral reactions in her audience from the intense story line.