Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenna Blum.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’m a novelist who started writing when I was four—my dad was a newswriter for CBS, my earliest memories punctuated by the sound of his typewriters, and I wanted to be just like him. I wrote my 1st book when I was 11, about my social studies teacher on whom I had a major crush, and had my 1st major publication when I was 14, in Seventeen Magazine—an anti-clique story called “The Legacy of Frank Finklestein, which won their National Fiction Contest. Naturally, after this, I decided the world owed me a living as a writer, whereas in reality, the world owed me a living in food service.
I went to Kenyon College in Ohio, worked as a waitress and prep chef, submitted stories to every literary magazine under the sun, eventually earned my M. A. in Creative Writing at Boston University, worked as the Fiction Editor for Agni Literary Magazine and taught Creative and Communications Writing at B.U., and began running fiction workshops at Boston writing school Grub Street Writers from its founding in 1997. I still teach at Grub Street, which marks a joyous two decades helping other writers fulfill their publication dreams for their novels!
In 2004 I procured my fantastic agent, Stéphanie Abou, and she sold my first novel, Those Who Save Us, to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I spoke to over 800 book clubs in the Boston area alone while promoting Those Who Save Us—thank you for reading, Boston!—and in 2007, the novel jumped onto the New York Times bestseller list. Those Who Save Us is now under option to become a feature film; I have published a second novel, The Stormchasers (Dutton, 2010), and my third novel, The Lost Family, will be published by Harper Collins June 5th, 2018.
I’m so excited to introduce this new book to my readers in Boston and across the country and beyond. (In an unusual circumstance, The Lost Family was published in Holland first, in November 2017–my first novel, Those Who Save Us, was the bestselling book in the Netherlands in 2011, so I have a blessedly receptive audience there—and The Lost Family has already been a Dutch bestseller for several months. I hope it has the same reception in America!)
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Being a writer is rarely a smooth road—which gives us more to write about! I have never wanted to be anything but a writer, and I started submitting my work to publishers and magazines at age 11. For the next 20-odd years, while I was papering my walls with rejection slips and submitting short stories to literary magazines on a fervent daily basis, I worked in restaurants: hostessing, waitressing, prep chef.
For one job, when I was in my 20s and living in Minneapolis, my waitressing position at a French café required that I wear a hat shaped like a head of garlic. I got consistently rejected not only by the magazines I submitted to but the graduate programs in creative writing I applied to: Boston University told me no three times before they finally let me in. (I probably just wore them down out of sheer perseverance.) When I was submitting my first novel to agents, I was told that it was “too depressing” (it’s set during the era of the Holocaust) and that it would never succeed. When that novel, Those Who Save Us, was published in 2004, it was the “family and friends” edition, because that’s who bought the hardcover.
All of these rejections and challenges only made me more determined to try, try again—when aspiring writers ask me for advice, I cite the Winston Churchill quote I had taped to the wall above my desk for many years: “Never give in, never give in, never give in.” To be a writer, you need not only a love and respect for and proficiency with language—you need determination. There are a lot of slings and arrows in this business. There are also multitudes of readers out there who love and need good books as much as I do, and I’m so grateful they are buying and reading my work, so I can spend my life doing what I love to do: writing more of them.
Jenna Blum – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I’m a novelist who’s known for my books (Those Who Save Us, The Stormchasers and soon-to-be-published The Lost Family), public speaking, and my connection with book clubs. To promote my first novel, Those Who Save Us, I visited over 800 book clubs in the Boston area alone!, and traveled extensively across the U.S. and overseas to talk about the book and writing. I cherish public speaking, the chance to connect in person with readers; my mom was a concert pianist, so I guess I got some performance gene from her. And book clubs will always hold a special place in my heart: they pushed Those Who Save Us onto the New York Times bestseller list in 2007, two years after it had come out in paperback.
“All my colleagues in publishing want to know how you did this, what is your secret,” my agent purred to me when the book first appeared on the list; “they are calling you Seabiscuit.” Once I had gotten over my nickname in New York being synonymous with the horse that came from behind, I told her there is no secret: I just have amazing readers. I began going to book clubs when a Grub Street Writers student’s mother asked me to come to hers, and I did, and I marveled that the ladies would talk about my book for two hours while I ate their cookies and drank wine, and when the book club was done, I said, “If you liked the novel, please pass it on to one other person.”
And they did—these readers passed my book from hand to hand, mother to daughter, sister to sister, friend to friend. Three years later, I was visiting three book clubs a day, in person, chugging a lot of espresso. I was and am so grateful. For this reason, I’m still known as an out-of-the-box marketer and a hard worker. I’m expanding those traits to social media—I love and am addicted to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram—and I look forward to connecting with readers in every medium!
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I define success by the Ralph Waldo Emerson saying: “”To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affections of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm, and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived–this is to have succeeded.”
It’s very important to me to give back; I feel writing is one way of doing that. When I read a good book, I often find sentences in it that make me feel less alone, as a human being and I hope I’ve done the same thing for readers of my novels. I try to help other writers, paying it forward. And my benchmark for success since I was a little four-year-old mouth-breathing with determination has been to be a published writer; I’m so grateful to have achieved that benchmark and for the extra beneficence of the appellation “New York Times bestseller.” When I’m an old lady on my deathbed (I hope to be at least 100), I’ll breathe easier knowing I’ve worked to achieve all of these things.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jennablum.com
- Email: jenna@jennablum.com
- Instagram: jenna_blum
- Facebook: Jenna Blum ] Jenna Blum 2.0 – author
- Twitter: @jenna_blum
Image Credit:
Jim Reed, Madeline Houpt, Susan E. McBeth
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