“I don’t plan anything out, and I don’t write in chronological order. The emotional tenor is what guides me, but a lot of it is feeling my way through the dark. That’s okay if you have unlimited time to work and stumble upon things in a delightful way, but under a deadline, it can be really stressful.”
― Jenny Han
“Food is a way to explore culture and ground the story in a specific time and place. I still remember the meals and snacks from my first novel, ‘Shug’: pork chops and applesauce and Coca-Cola and peanuts, which are very Southern. When a character has roots elsewhere, food is a way to connect with home and another culture.”
― Jenny Han
“It’s important for Asian American kids to see themselves in stories and to feel seen. They need to know that their stories are universal, too, that they, too, can fall in love in a teen movie. They don’t have to be the sidekick; they can be the hero.”
― Jenny Han
“When you write something by hand, there’s a sort of intimacy that is just intrinsic to that act. You don’t get to delete something in the same way, where it’s like it was never there.”
― Jenny Han
“All my writer friends outline their books, and I find that hard. It doesn’t feel inspired to me. I get bored with that, and really, I just want it to be fun.”
― Jenny Han
“When you’re young, you don’t have a lot of control over even basic things in your life – where you live, what you eat, where you go during the day, how you get there. You don’t have a lot of control, and that can feel sort of unstable in its own way because you don’t get a say in those basic things.”
― Jenny Han
“I started writing stories at a young age, but not once did it occur to me that I could grow up to be a writer. Who could I look to? My favorite authors were Ann M. Martin and E.L. Konigsburg and Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary and Lois Lowry and Norma Klein. They were all white women, and they seemed so stately to me, so elegant. A whole world away.”
― Jenny Han
“I really love to write about food, crafts, and fashion, so those details will always be a part of my books. I think they inject stories with color and flavor, providing a tactile experience.”
― Jenny Han
“You don’t have to you change yourself for somebody else to like you.”
― Jenny Han
“Just like Lara Jean in my book ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,’ I used to write letters to boys I was in love with – letters full of emotion and longing and also recrimination – but they were for my eyes only.”
― Jenny Han
“I had a bulletin board in my bedroom with every picture of Leo ever taken – keep in mind, this was pre-‘Titanic’ and pre-Us Weekly, practically pre-Internet. I had to buy ‘The Leonardo DiCaprio Album’ and cut out my favorite pics.”
― Jenny Han
“Teenage years are all about crushes: crushes so deep you wanted to inhabit the other person, be inside their skin, see the world through their eyes.”
― Jenny Han
“When I sold my first middle-grade novel in 2005, it wasn’t that common to put an author photo on the back flap, but 24-year-old Korean-American me insisted. I wanted Asian girls to see my face. And more than that, I wanted them to see what is possible.”
― Jenny Han
“There is power in seeing a face that looks like yours do something, be someone. There is power in moving from the sidelines to the center.”
― Jenny Han
“Every choice leads you somewhere, but it might not be where you truly want to be if the decision is based on someone else. It could lead to regrets and what-ifs, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t still have valuable experiences.”
― Jenny Han
“My sister is my very favorite person, and I dedicated ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ to her.”
― Jenny Han
“The most joyful part of writing, for me, is when I am 90% there, and suddenly the story clicks into place, and things finally start to make sense.”
― Jenny Han
“When I finished ‘P.S. I Still Love You,’ I truly was done with the series. I kept saying the books were two halves of a heart. But I suppose time and space had made me nostalgic, because my mind kept drifting back to Lara Jean and Peter, wondering what they were up to.”
― Jenny Han
“I try to be measured and thoughtful about what I put out there because I know a lot of young people follow me on Twitter, and I take that seriously – which is why I don’t exclusively tweet about cookies and ‘Game of Thrones’ and YA.”
― Jenny Han
“I learn so much on Twitter all the time, and it would be a shame not to share that with my readers.”
― Jenny Han
“A tweet in an article can feel more permanent and louder than a tweet on Twitter.”
― Jenny Han
“I think that if a writer doesn’t use her voice, be it in her writing or online or in real life, then what is the point of having one?”
― Jenny Han
“It’s not hard to get into a teen’s head, because it’s all emotions. Their feelings are amplified; you have no luxury of hindsight. If you haven’t had your heart broken before, you don’t know that you’ll be able to get back up again.”
― Jenny Han
“I think, as a writer, you spend most of your time working on the book alone.”
― Jenny Han
“There’s some of me in all my characters.”
― Jenny Han
“I came of age during the Golden Age of rom coms – like the ’90s and 2000s – there were so many.”
― Jenny Han
“I was writing my first book when I was in college. I was a teenager.”
― Jenny Han
“My whole life, as an adult as well, I’ve been attracted to stories about young people. This period of time is so fertile – there’s a million things that are happening, a million firsts, and to be able to witness that and record that is a privilege.”
― Jenny Han
“’The Summer I Turned Pretty’ is about how, as a young woman, everyone gets that moment of being in bloom, but nobody really appreciates it.”
― Jenny Han
“I just think of myself as a writer. Yes, I’m a woman. And I’m a writer. The main challenge is that I like to write stories about young women, and society doesn’t place much of a premium on young women’s stories. And I think that’s why I gravitate towards it. I really honor that, and I treasure that time, and they should be given that respect.”
― Jenny Han
“My name is Jennifer, and when I first went to school, my kindergarten teacher called me Jenny, and from then on, I was Jenny.”
― Jenny Han
“As a child, I spent a lot of summers going to the beach with family friends.”
― Jenny Han
“I think most girls have that moment when boys they’ve known their whole life see them in a different way.”
― Jenny Han
“I write diverse books because the world we live in is diverse, and I want my books to reflect that truth.”
― Jenny Han
“I don’t think kids of color should have to search far and wide to find books that reflect their experience.”
― Jenny Han
“Beyonce, Otis Redding, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, and Adele are a few of my favorites.”
― Jenny Han
“I don’t think you ever love anything as passionately as you do when you’re a teen. You remember the books you read as a young person your whole life. I feel so lucky to write for young adults.”
― Jenny Han
“I worked on ‘Always and Forever, Lara Jean’ for a few months before I breathed a word of it my editor or agent.”
― Jenny Han
“There’s something so delicious about holding onto a secret; it’s something just for you.”
― Jenny Han
“It’s far too rare an experience for Asian American girls to see themselves in media.”
― Jenny Han
“Change is hard but inevitable.”
― Jenny Han
“I always think about race as a part of one’s identity, not the whole of one’s identity. You don’t want it to be the defining characteristic of a character. There has to be more.”
― Jenny Han
“The feedback for ‘P.S. I Still Love You’ has been pretty amazing. To have written this story about this family with Asian-American characters and be so embraced is really incredible for me as a writer as well as a person of color.”
― Jenny Han
“I think you are going through so many ‘firsts’ as a teenager, and it’s a charged time because of that. You don’t have much autonomy in life. Everything is just kind of crazy, and there are so many huge decisions to be made, like where are you going to college or who you date. These things can really affect your whole life.”
― Jenny Han
“I like to read non-fiction on my e-reader, but as for fiction, I usually like to have a copy to keep at home.”
― Jenny Han
“Writing is just always hard for me. It always feels like drawing blood. It’s never particularly easy.”
― Jenny Han
“There are so many people that want to tell stories. I think that the issue is how hard it is to get your foot in the door to tell your stories.”
― Jenny Han
“I think, generally, romantic stories end with people together. But I’d like a story that ends, like, hopefully but not necessarily neatly.”
― Jenny Han
“Sometimes readers want some escapist fun, to get lost in the story. But light-hearted romantic stories can and should star all kinds of girls.”
― Jenny Han
“I do end up revealing a lot online, but in books, what I reveal is more tailored. Authors can couch revelations in fiction. With social media, no one wants to watch or read if it doesn’t feel authentic, so you end up giving away a lot of yourself.”
― Jenny Han
“Even as a full-grown adult, it can still feel destabilizing when your family goes through changes.”
― Jenny Han
“We learn so much about the world by what we take in through movies and TV and books – we learn who’s worthy of having their story told.”
― Jenny Han
“I might just be the luckiest girl ever.”
― Jenny Han
“I always know what time it is.”
― Jenny Han
“It’s fairly common to get something optioned but really rare to actually see it become a movie.”
― Jenny Han
“I think that, oftentimes, what people say is, ‘We need an actress who’ll be able to greenlight a movie,’ and my counterargument to that is always that, when it comes to a teen movie, you have very few people who can greenlight a movie.”
― Jenny Han
“With Asian-Americans actors, specifically, there’s been fewer opportunities for them in TV and film and fewer that have the ability to actually make a career out of it. It becomes a bit of a chicken and egg situation, where they’re like, ‘Oh, but they’re not famous names,’ but they haven’t had a chance to be in anything yet, either.”
― Jenny Han
“The American girl doesn’t look just one kind of way – not in 2018, not ever.”
― Jenny Han
“I think that’s what distinguishes YA from adult fiction – it’s not just the age of the characters, but it’s the sense of hope. Because I don’t think I’ve ever read a YA book that feels completely hopeless at the end.”
― Jenny Han
“Whenever I was trying to get over a boy, I would write him a really long, wrought letter – but never mail it.”
― Jenny Han
“College applications are such a huge part of senior year, yet often times you never see characters in books actually do work.”
― Jenny Han
“I started writing my first book for young people when I was in college. I was only a couple of years out of my teens when I began; I felt closer to that experience than I did as an adult. But I’ve always been drawn to stories about young people.”
― Jenny Han
“You don’t really know when the last time you’re going to do something is; the middle can often be a bit blurry. Firsts are very potent.”
― Jenny Han
“The books you read as a young person are books that stay with you forever. I think that is the biggest privilege of writing for young people. You feel like you can help shape somebody.”
― Jenny Han
“When I get an email from someone who says, ‘Your book was the first book I ever read,’ or, ‘Your book is what made me love reading,’ it’s just such an honor.”
― Jenny Han
“When you handwrite something, you’re writing your most raw, pure thoughts. If you want to change it, then you have to mark it out, and people can see you laboring over that thought. I think even the act of hand, pen, and paper is much more intimate than with a computer screen.”
― Jenny Han
“My sister and I are really close. She’s my little sister.”
― Jenny Han
“Sometimes you don’t know what a book is about until you are finished with it and you’re talking about it.”
― Jenny Han
“There is real power in seeing yourself as a hero. Because then you believe that you can do anything.”
― Jenny Han
“I think that sometimes we put undue pressure on stories featuring people of color, and I hope we get to a point where it’s not such a rarity to see a person of color be the hero of a story, so that it can just be a story and not have to carry so much weight.”
― Jenny Han
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