Jenn Alexander is an author born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, she lived in Texas for three years while completing her M.S. in Counseling, and is currently living back in Edmonton, where she works as a play therapist. She is a graduate of the 2018 class of the Golden Crown Literary Society's Writing Academy, for which she was the year's recipient of the Sandra Moran scholarship. When she’s not writing, she spends her time playing drums, traveling, and spending time with her family. She lives with her daughter, Addison, her girlfriend, Sandra, and their two troublemaker pets.
Jenn is the author of three, soon to be four novels and a number of short stories.
writes mainly (though not exclusively) slice-of-life dramatic romances about compulsively readable, beautifully flawed people.
Her debut novel, 2019's The Song of the Sea from Bywater Books, is the story of a broken-hearted woman mourning the loss of her infant son, and the new family that may be the key to healing that trauma she finds on the East Coast of Canada, if she can allow herself to love again. The book was the 2020 Independent Publisher's Awards (IPPY): Canada East Regional Fiction, Gold Medal winner.
Jenn has also published the Texas-set Home in 2020, last year's Vancouver set rock romance Live It Out, and the forthcoming Bloodline which blends late night coffee shops with vampires, and publishes on April 9th.
Words Worth: Given that we're a bookstore, I like to start my interviews (admittedly you're only my second) with you as a reader rather than a writer. Can you give us some insight as to what you've been reading lately and/or what are some of your favourite books of all time?
Jenn Alexander: I've been reading a wide variety of books lately. I recently finished Only The Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, which was a dark and gritty horror novel that has left me thinking about it ever since. I also recently finished Quiver by Rachel Spangler, which was a wonderful, emotion-rich sports romance. My favourite book of all time is The Giver by Lois Lowry.
WW: It goes without saying that all authors put parts of themselves into their writing, but I noticed that you went to school for three years in Texas, and used that as the setting for your sophomore novel, Home. You were trained, and presently work as a play therapist, similar to Faith, one of your two leads in Live It Out, who's a counselor in a women's shelter. All that is to say that I'm curious: how much do you feel your life experiences impact the stories you tell?
JA: My life experiences are usually the jumping off point for my writing. I start with something I'm interested in and go from there. When I started planning Live It Out, I was playing drums in an all-queer band (granted we mostly played in my basement, rather than to sold out crowds) and I wanted to put that love of music into a book. I thought an all-queer band could be a fun backdrop for a series of romance novels.
WW: Speaking of Live It Out, in that book there was something of a fun little sort-of cameo in that Lisa Whelan, one of the protagonists of your debut novel The Song of the Sea, was name dropped. Do you think of this as hinting at an interconnected story universe (the JLU, perhaps) or was it just a fun nod to those of us trying to read all your work?
JA: It was mostly just a fun nod to anyone who has read all my work, and a chance to share a little of what Lisa might have been up to since The Song of the Sea. I saw the opportunity to connect the stories and went for it. If more opportunities come up to link books in the future, the interconnected universe could certainly grow.
WW: As a writer myself, I'm always curious about authors' creation process, so how would you classify yours? Do you think of yourself as a planner? A pantser? Some hybrid of the two? And what's your favourite part of the writing process?
JA: I'm a pantser all the way. Once I have a messy, meandering, plot-hole ridden draft, I make a plan for edits so I can try to get the book to resemble a book. It is a completely inefficient writing process because I usually have to do the bulk of the story writing during the second draft. I only keep about 10% of my first drafts.
My favourite part of the writing process is the editing process (usually around the third draft) when I can see the book take shape and it starts to look more like what I have envisioned.
WW: One of the things that has struck me in all your work has been how human your characters are. Beautiful and flawed and so relatable, even if the reader's lives may differ from your character's individual experiences. Most of us may not be Juno-nominated rock stars like Spencer Adams, but I'd be willing to bet many people can relate to Spencer's pain and wariness about revisiting a past love. What makes you fall in love with the characters you write?
JA: First of all, thank you! I hope that my characters read as real and relatable.
I'm a pantser, but once I sit down to write a draft, I have usually been daydreaming my story for so long that I have a good sense of the characters. They feel real to me by the time I start putting words to the page, and then they become more real with each draft. The characters usually guide my stories. I almost always know the internal conflict. External conflict and plot are where I struggle.
When I sat down to write Spencer, I had been listening to Brene Brown's TED Talks and had read a few of her books. I spent a lot of time asking myself what Spencer's shame story was and what her core beliefs about herself were, and I let that guide the conflict.
WW: Most of your published work so far has fit firmly into the 'real world'. Social workers, artists, restaurateurs and the like. The two exceptions to that that I'm aware of are 'Tilly's Tarts', your contribution to Bywater's recent Soul Food Stories anthology, and your upcoming novel, Bloodline. Is there anything you notice about the act of writing stories with more fantastical elements that differs significantly to your more slice-of-life stories?
JA: Slice-of-life is easy for me to write. People and emotions make sense to me. Like I mentioned, external conflict and plot are where I struggle, so navigating more fantastical elements is a challenge for me. Specifically, when bringing fantastical or supernatural elements into a real-world situation, I find it hard to introduce those elements in a way that feels plausible. If I ran into a demon, I'd probably seek psychiatric help before I made any supernatural deals with her. I'm not sure what kind of proof could convince me that something supernatural exists. I'm probably too much of a skeptic. But big claims require big proof, and I find that difficult to write in a way that plausibly invites readers to suspend their disbelief for the story.
WW: Speaking of Bloodline, I had the opportunity to speak with Anna Burke last summer who talked about bringing to life her latest, In the Roses of Pieria. She told me how it started life as a vampire novella writing project between you, her, and fellow Bywater author Samara Breger. The way Anna tells the story, as she was writing Roses she was unable to pare down the writing to novella length, and so she talked to you and Samara and said you both had to make your stories into full novels as well. What's your perspective on this whole thing...were you gently strong-armed into writing a vampire novel? Hehe
JA: Haha, yes, the book is all Anna's fault.
I had actually written the first draft as a submission for the International 3-Day Novel Contest, which is a Canadian-run writing contest that challenges people to write a "novel" (they're usually novella-length) over the course of the labour day long weekend. Entries get submitted and a winner is selected for publication. It is an amazingly fun writing contest that I have participated in probably about ten times now.
Through that, I ended up with a vampire novella and no idea what to do with one. I got in touch with Anna Burke and Samara Breger, with the plan for us to bundle three vampire novellas together. Then, Anna's story exploded... It was a challenge to start thinking of my little story as a full-length novel, but now I can't imagine it being complete otherwise.
Bloodline was a story, however, that began as something I was writing entirely because I enjoyed it, and I hope that the fun I had writing this book comes across to readers.
WW: In an act of pure Canadian-ness, you dedicated your contribution to Soul Food Stories to butter tarts. In it, the main character Tilly sold her soul to be able to make the best butter tarts in the country, so I have to know, who has the best butter tarts in Canada in your opinion? Or, alternatively, do you have a soul-worthy butter tart recipe of your own? Final butter tart addendum: Plain, pecan or raisin?
JA: I have to admit something blasphemous. I don't actually like butter tarts all that much. If I were to find plain or pecan butter tarts, then I'm sure they'd be delicious, but usually my utter hatred for raisins turns me off of them. I almost only ever see butter tarts with raisins in them. Nanaimo bars are the way to go in terms of Canadian sweets, but Tilly's Nanaimo Bars didn't have the same ring to it.
If Jenn ever finds herself out here in Waterloo, the non-raisin butter tarts from Sweet & Savoury are definitely on us! In the meantime, I would like to extend a huge thank you to her for donating her time to this interview! Online, you can find Jenn at https://jennalexander.ca/ or on Instagram, and remember to pre-order Bloodline! (Psst, she is running a Bloodline Pre-Order Giveaway! Check out her website for details, only good while supplies last and prior to publication April 9, 2024!)