1. What was your favourite book when you were sixteen and why?

I was crazy about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. All of my friends were reading it at the same time. To this day, I know of few sweeter pleasures than when you show up at school in the morning and say “PAN-GALACTIC GARGLE-BLASTERS!” and your best friend is like “42! TOWELS! YES!”

2. What is your favourite way to waste time?

I like walking places instead of driving. One time, my boyfriend and I walked 100 miles to his grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. We slept in the woods and ate apples from roadside trees. There is something subversive about walking; it’s a rejection of industrial time, and a way of reclaiming the landscape, one step at a time. I could waste my whole life walking somewhere, and maybe some day I will.

3. What are you reading now?

Moby Dick. I used to have this beef against classics, like they were these dusty old tomes with twenty-page descriptions of dining room furniture, but a few months ago when I was traveling around Morocco, the only books I could get in English were re-prints of classic literature. I got hooked.

4. If you could drop everything and go anywhere tomorrow, where would you go and why?

The Yukon. I would take a sleeping bag, and a knife, and some matches, and a notebook, and go for one of those epic walks that ends up lasting fifty years.

5. Describe your book in five words.

Disastrous discoveries yield euphoric revels

Since music is such a big part of Wild Awake, we asked Hilary what songs inspired her while writing the book. Listen to her playlist here:

Who knows, maybe it will inspire you to pick up a pen (or go grab your laptop) and write a YA masterpiece of your own!

Come back tomorrow as we continue to celebrate #WildAwakeWeek! If you missed it, check out this interactive map, this #bikesinthewild contest, and stay tuned for so much more!

The @HCCfrenzy Team