Q&A With Jenny Hale 

Jenny Hale is the USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary romance. Two of Jenny’s books Coming Home For Christmas, Christmas Wishes, & Mistletoe Kisses were adapted to tv movies for Hallmark Channel original movies. Some of her other many books are The Memory Keeper, An Island Summer & her recent release The Magic Of Sea Glass. I have the honor of doing this Q&A with Jenny Hale. 

Jenny: Thanks for having me!

Q: So Jenny, would you like to talk about your recent release The Magic Of Sea Glass & how you came up with the concept for the story?

A: Sure! The Magic of Sea Glass is the story of event planner Lauren Sutton, who can’t seem to go on with her choice of career or the life she’d built with her fiancé any longer after losing him a year ago. Floundering emotionally, she makes a snap decision to sell her half of the business and spend the summer taking care of an old inn in Rodanthe, North Carolina with its elderly owner. What she doesn’t expect to find is a story hidden away in a string of sea glass that will change her life forever.

And complicating things is local fisherman Brody Harrison. All she’d wanted was to sink her toes in the sand and let the coastal breeze calm her aching heart. But Brody shakes up her plan in ways she’d never imagined.

I came up with the idea after brainstorming romantic beach words for the title with an editor friend of mine. She and I were trying to come up with a better title than the one I had (which I can’t even remember now). She said, “What about sea glass?” That was all I needed. I scrapped the story I was writing and began writing The Magic of Sea Glass.

Q: Where do your ideas for your romance books come from? Do they come from bits and pieces of real people and places you know and seen?

A: They come from everywhere. I might hear a lyric in a song, see someone on the street, have something happen to me or someone else… The tiniest thing can trigger a whole story.

Q: What drew you into writing contemporary romance, and did you ever feel as though being an author was your calling in life? 

A: I was actually an elementary school teacher, and district-level specialist. I did that for 18 years. Unfulfilled creatively in my personal life, I got bored and decided to try to write something like what I was reading. I never really saw it as a calling. I just did it. And it took on a life of its own.

Q: Who were/are your biggest supporters of your writing talent and goals?

A: My family. They have all treated this as a job from day one, before I’d made it big. They have always worked around the creative time I needed.

Q: With your books Coming Home For Christmas, Christmas Wishes, & Mistletoe Kisses being adapted to tv movies for Hallmark Channel, what was it like having Hallmark making your books into movies?

A: It was really exciting to see how the network adapted my stories to fit their audiences. I really enjoyed seeing that creative process on screen. And it was cool to see the characters that I’d created living and breathing.

Q: Does Hallmark and any other entertainment studio in Hollywood have the rights to your work? The entertainment industry needs original content again? 

A: TV companies have the rights to the books they contract to make into movies. They do not have any claim on my other novels—unless they want them! I’d be happy to hand them over. ☺ 

Q: Where is your favorite spot or spots to sit down and plot, write, and edit your work?

A: I do my best work at coffee shops.

Q: If you were writing different genres other than contemporary romance, which genres would you explore and why?

A: Probably straight women’s fiction. Maybe historical fiction… Those would be fun to write.

Q: What advice would you give anyone wanting to write great contemporary romance?

A: Study up on internal and external conflicts and get a really good one before you start. What is keeping your couple apart? What in their past is in the way, and what do they go through that helps them through whatever that is so they can be together?

Q: What are you currently writing at the moment, or is it too early to reveal any details?

A: I don’t reveal a lot about my books, choosing to keep them very secret, but I’m writing my summer novel now. I’m nearly done with draft one.