Hannah Rials first novel, “Ascension,” was released on Aug. 27 with an initial run of 1,500. About two-thirds of those have been sold so far.If you go
› What: “Ascension” book signing by Hannah Rials› When: 4-6 p.m. Friday.› Where: Star Line Books, 1467 Market St.› Phone: 777-5629
Hannah Rials is not the first intern at a publishing company to work up the nerve to ask her boss to look at a manuscript she’d been working on. She’s probably not even the first to have the publisher like her work.
But that’s what happened, says Audrey Press Publisher Valarie Budayr. In fact, Audrey Press needed a Young Adult arm anyway, so she used Rials’ “Ascension” to create Aletha Press.
“She put her manuscript on my desk at 17 when she was in high school doing an internship for us,” Budayr says. “Four hundred and fifty pages. I know adults who can’t do that. I looked at it, and it had good bones, and we decided what she needed was a mentor more than an editor. She and [mentor/editor] Mallory [Leonard] took a wonderful journey.”
Rials, 20, started writing “Ascension” as a 12-year-old middle-school student in Maryville, Tenn. It was her second effort.
“I started one at 10 about a dog, but it never went anywhere,” she says.
Then Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series of books about young vampires came out, “and I read those in about a week, and I woke up from a dream and said, ‘I’m going to write a book,'” Rials says.
She worked on the book while a student at Maryville High School, enlisting the help of Pam Hix, a tutor who helped develop her writing as well as the story.
“I went through four drafts,” Rials says. “The story grew up as I did and matured, and the writing matured. When I started, it was about my own angst. I got over that.”
Rials, a junior at UTC, says the finished “Ascension” is quite a bit different than the original draft, though it still centers around a teenage vampire.
“The main character was named Macy at first, and now she is Cheyenne Lane,” Rials says. “The original title was ‘Macy the Teenage Vampire.’ The content matured and not in a bad way. It went beyond, ‘I hate my parents and I hate high school.'”
Rials, who will sign copies of “Ascension” on Friday at Star Line Books, has finished writing the second book, which is now in the editing process.
Budayr says when she began reading “Ascension” she couldn’t put it down and knew right away that not only would she publish it for the Maryville-based Audrey Press, she knew the book needed to be a trilogy.
The book was released on Aug. 27 with an initial run of 1,500 copies. Budayr says two-thirds of those have sold.
“After just a few days, people Hannah didn’t know were buying them and asking when the second would be out,” Budayr says.
The book is set in New Orleans and Rials, who was born in Louisiana, visited the city with her family while writing the book. She wrote down every street name and landmark she saw.
While she originally had 450 pages to give to Budayr, they weren’t perfect. Rials and Leonard worked for more than a year on the book, then it went to a copy editor.
“She sent it back with 17 pages of plot holes,” Rials says. “I spent the summer fixing those. The process can be heartbreaking, cutting scenes that you really like, but I have wonderful editors and wonderful support.”
And she admits that her writing improved while she plowed through different drafts of the book.
“I was one of those people whose character said so much and didn’t need to. When I was younger, I thought exclamation marks could go anywhere. People get really mad when you do that.”
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.