I wanted that from page two-this girl’s going to have a baby. I knew that wanted to be the opening chapter. Which one of those experiences, if any, did you find the easiest to understand and explore? I started from Grace, because I knew I wanted her chapter having Peach. And each one’s different, but they all feel really accurate and authentic. But one of the things I really loved about this was your inclusion of four different kinds of adoption experiences. I was adopted, so I’m always wary when I see an adoption story. It was this divine intervention, I guess. But I knew the three siblings right away. It just took a long time to figure out how to tell that story. In the car I wrote an email to my editor and talked it out, and she immediately wrote back. It just made me think about a birth mother giving her baby up for adoption, and maybe that baby, without even realizing it, was carrying some part of that mother and that mother’s love with them. I heard, “A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes,” and immediately : Oh my gosh, this book is about adoption. I was in the parking lot at a Costco on Fourth of July weekend. Then a week later, I heard a Florence + The Machine song. I don’t have any ideas for you, and as soon as I have one, I’ll let you know.” I finally emailed my editor and, “I need to take a break. And of course my deadlines were whizzing past me at HarperCollins. What made you want to write about it? I had been working on a book idea for a very long time, and it just wasn’t working out. I really wanted to be careful in what I was doing.

And I read a ton of books about adoption, just trying to make sure that I understood what I was taking on, because I just didn’t want to get it wrong. I talked to adoption liaisons, someone who worked with a birth mother, and an adoptive family. I talked to adoption attorneys, families who privately adopted, and social workers.

I spent eight months researching and looking at all the different aspects of adoption, and talking to many different people. No one in my immediate family is adopted or has adopted. Sarah Hannah Gómez: What is your connection to adoption? Robin Benway: I don’t really have a connection with adoption.

Benway, a six-time author, a Los Angeles native, and a graduate of UCLA, says her extensive research for the award-winning Far from the Tree (HarperCollins) was “a daily eye-opener in good and bad ways.” It went on to win the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature on November 15. Young adult author Robin Benway was helping her mother move into a new condo when she got the news that she had made the National Book Award long list. Photo by Beowulf Sheehan, courtesy of NBF Benway received her National Book Award in New York City on November 15.

Robin benway