Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Brown.
Jennifer, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. It has always been my safe place, my personal entertainment, my way of venting strong feelings or working out emotions. As a lifelong, dedicated bookworm, authors were my absolute heroes. Honestly, it never even occurred to me to try to become one of them, even though I had been encouraged along the way by many teachers and mentors to do just that.
It wasn’t until I spent some time working an office job that I realized I needed more of a creative outlet than I was getting, and I began to consider the possibility of writing as a career. I was 28 when I first started writing in hopes of publication. It took me 6 years to land an agent. And it wasn’t for another 3 years (and 4 rejected novels) that my first novel, Hate List, was published.
Since then, I’ve been blessed to see the publication of 8 young adult novels, 4 middle grade novels, 4 women’s fiction novels, 1 cozy mystery, and 7 romance novels. My novels have been translated into 9 different languages, and have won many awards, including the Missouri Gateway Readers Award and the William Allen White Children’s Book Award.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It was not a smooth road at all. As I mentioned, Hate List was my first published novel, but the fifth novel that I wrote. I wrote and submitted (all through snail mail at the time) a way-too-chewy mystery and 3 rom-coms that never went anywhere. It took me 6 years of dedicated writing and submitting to land an agent, and an additional 3 years to finally sell a book.
That meant 9 years of unpaid writing. Nine years of rejection, rejection, rejection.
I tried to supplement my wallet (and my resume) by writing and submitting essays, poems, articles, short stories, anything I could think of. For 4 years, I wrote a weekly humor column for our major metropolitan newspaper, for which I earned $35 a week. I recapped soap operas and reality TV shows. I interviewed local artists for magazines. I did everything I could think of, just to make a few dollars here and there and keep the dream alive. And I continued to compile even more rejections.
I thought about giving up more times than I can count. But the swept-away, all-in feeling that I get when I’m deep inside a story is the magic that kept me going.
And it’s the magic that still keeps me going. Even after 24 published novels, I still get rejections. Many of them.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am most known for my young adult novel, Hate List, which is a story of the aftermath of a school shooting told from the point of view of the shooter’s girlfriend. In the story, she has to reach out to, and connect with, the girl who relentlessly bullied her prior to the shooting to try and bring healing and closure to herself and her community. Hate List isn’t so much about a school shooting as it is about connection–especially connection with those you don’t naturally connect with. It’s about seeing people for who they really are, rather than who you think they might be based on stereotypes, preconceived notions, judgments, hatred, bigotry, etc.
In fact, all of my books are about connection. I think connecting with others is the hardest, and most important, task that we have as humans. To seek to understand each other. To strive for empathy. To work on inclusivity. To be kind. To be willing to ride the wave of someone else’s most difficult moment so that we can reach down into the murky ocean when they get swept away, and pull them back up to breathe.
My books aren’t always easy to read, emotionally, but I’m very proud of the messages within. And I believe in those messages fully.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Being an author means taking your inside thoughts and putting them on blast for everyone to see. You put those thoughts out there knowing with 100% certainty that someone out there isn’t going to agree with them and will very possibly go out of their way to make sure you know it. The deeper the story, the deeper the message, the more of a risk you take in putting it out there. In my view, every time you sit down to write, you’re taking a risk.
But, also, just the fact of writing on the faith that maybe someone will want to publish what you’ve written…putting hundreds of hours into a project that might never see the light of day…and then hundreds more knowing that even if you get published, it doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will buy the book…all of that is a huge risk. You have to be willing to put in the work without a guarantee of the reward.
I think all artists take this same risk. But I also think it’s an incredibly important risk to take. Good art creates good discussion, and good discussion creates change. Without risk, how do we ever, as a society, improve?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jenniferbrownauthor.com
- Instagram: jenbrownyabooks
- Facebook: JenBrownBooks
