Suzanne Collins
About Author
Suzanne Collins has had a successful and prolific career writing for children's television. For preschool viewers, she penned multiple stories for the Emmy-nominated Little Bear and Oswald.
She has worked on several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit Clarissa Explains it All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo.
She received a Writer's Guild of America nomination for co-writing the critically acclaimed Rankin/Bass Christmas special, Santa, Baby! Most recently she was the head writer for Cliffords Puppy Days.
Suzanne Collins made her mark in children's literature with the New York Timesbestselling Underland Chronicles, which started with the acclaimed book Gregor the Overlander.
Suzanne was inspired to write the Underland Chronicles series when thinking about Alice in Wonderland. She considered how the story might have occurred in an urban setting. In New York City, you're much more likely to fall down a manhole than a rabbit hole and, if you do, you're not going to find a tea party.
When eleven-year-old Gregor falls through the grating in the floor of his basement laundry room, he finds himself in a world inhabited by giant rats, bats, cockroaches and spiders.
In The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins continues to explore the effect of violence on those coming of age, which was a theme in the more fantastical Underland Chronicles. She was inspired to write The Hunger Games when an idea formed whilst she flicked between television channels broadcasting real war coverage and reality television programmes. The Hunger Games is the first in a trilogy.
Author link
www.suzannecollinsbooks.com; www.thehungergames.co.uk
Interview
January 2009
THE HUNGER GAMES
Suzanne Collins talks about the inspiration behind her bestselling The Hunger Games.
Q: You weave action, adventure, mythology, sci-fi, romance, and philosophy throughout The Hunger Games. What influenced the creation of The Hunger Games?
A: A significant influence would have to be the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. The myth tells how in punishment for past deeds, Athens periodically had to send seven youths and seven maidens to Crete, where they were thrown in the Labyrinth and devoured by the monstrous Minotaur.
Even as a kid, I could appreciate how ruthless this was. Crete was sending a very clear message: Mess with us and well do something worse than kill you. Well kill your children. And the thing is, it was allowed; the parents sat by powerless to stop it. Theseus, who was the son of the king, volunteered to go. I guess in her own way, Katniss is a futuristic Theseus.
In keeping with the classical roots, I send my tributes into an updated version of the Roman gladiator games, which entails a ruthless government forcing people to fight to the death as popular entertainment. The world of Panem, particularly the Capitol, is loaded with Roman references. Panem itself comes from the expression 'Panem et Circenses' which translates into 'Bread and Circuses'.
The audiences for both the Roman games and reality TV are almost characters in themselves. They can respond with great enthusiasm or play a role in your elimination.
I was channel surfing between reality TV programming and actual war coverage when Katnisss story came to me. One night I'm sitting there flipping around and on one channel theres a group of young people competing for, I don't know, money maybe? And on the next, there's a group of young people fighting an actual war. And I was tired, and the lines began to blur in this very unsettling way, and I thought of this story.
Q: The Hunger Games is an annual televised event in which one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts is forced to participate in a fight-to-the-death on live TV. What do you think the appeal of reality television isto both kids and adults?
A: Well, they're often set up as games and, like sporting events, theres an interest in seeing who wins. The contestants are usually unknown, which makes them relatable. Sometimes they have very talented people performing.
Then there's the voyeuristic thrillwatching people being humiliated, or brought to tears, or suffering physicallywhich I find very disturbing. There's also the potential for desensitizing the audience, so that when they see real tragedy playing out on, say, the news, it doesnt have the impact it should.
Q: The Hunger Games tackles issues like severe poverty, starvation, oppression, and the effects of war among others. What drew you to such serious subject matter?
A: That was probably my dads influence. He was career Air Force, a military specialist, a historian, and a doctor of political science. When I was a kid, he was gone for a year in Viet Nam. It was very important to him that we understood about certain aspects of life. So, it wasnt enough to visit a battlefield, we needed to know why the battle occurred, how it played out, and the consequences. Fortunately, he had a gift for presenting history as a fascinating story. He also seemed to have a good sense of exactly how much a child could handle, which is quite a bit.
Q: In The Hunger Games, Katniss and Gale have an extensive knowledge of hunting, foraging, wildlife, and survival techniques. What kinds of research did you do, if any?
A: Some things I knew from listening to my dad talking about his childhood. He grew up during the Depression. For his family, hunting was not a sport but a way to put meat on the table. He also knew a certain amount about edible plants. Hed go into the woods and gather all these wild mushrooms and bring them home and saut them. My mom wouldnt let any of us go near them! But hed eat them up and they never harmed him, so I guess he knew which ones were safe, because wild mushrooms can be very deadly.
I also read a big stack of wilderness survival guidebooks. And heres what I learned: youve got to be really good to survive out there for more than a few days.
Q: Was The Hunger Games always planned as a trilogy?
A: Not necessarily. But once Id thought through to the end of the first book, I realized that there was no way that the story was concluded. Katniss does something that would never go unpunished in her world. There would definitely be repercussions. And so the question of whether or not to continue with a series was answered for me.
Q: How do you typically spend your workday? Do you have a routine as you write?
A: I grab some cereal and sit down to work as soon as possible. The more distractions I have to deal with before I actually begin writing, the harder focusing on the story becomes. Then I work until Im tapped out, usually sometime in the early afternoon. If I actually write three to five hours, thats a productive day. Some days all I do is stare at the wall. That can be productive, too, if youre working out character and plot problems. The rest of the time, I walk around with the story slipping in and out of my thoughts.
Q: What were some of your favorite novels when you were a teen?
A:
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine LEngle
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Boris by Jaapter Haar
Germinal by Emile Zola
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
