How did you become a writer?
I wanted to be a writer before I could even read or write, or—frankly—talk. My mother says I walked around the house as a toddler with a pencil and paper and made weird little “writing” noises as I scribbled. When I was eight, I wrote my first story with a beginning, middle and end and only stopped creative writing to pursue the study and practice of law throughout my twenties. I began seriously writing novels at age thirty and gave up after five manuscripts, twenty years and three hundred agent rejections. Ten years later, my husband was diagnosed with terminal lung disease and I turned to Jane Austen for comfort and distraction during that harrowing time. When my husband’s lung decline slowed down due to an experimental drug regimen, I felt the smallest measure of hope, followed by a sudden new desire to write again. It turns out that I am a writer who needs to feel hope to sit in the chair! I wrote my debut The Jane Austen Society in such a state and, first wave of the pandemic notwithstanding, I wrote Bloomsbury Girls in a similar condition, on the heels of my debut resonating with readers.
Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).
My biggest writing influences are my favorite writers, whose voices feel like music to my ears: Jane Austen, Henry James, E. M. Forster, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf and—much more recently—Penelope Fitzgerald, Ian McEwan, Susan Minot, Paul Auster and Elizabeth Strout. For books on craft, I swear by Stephen King’s On Writing, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Wayand Syd Field’s Screenplay. But it was the encouragement and support of a handful of teachers, from middle school through university, that gave me the confidence and belief in myself that turned out to be critical to withstanding the twenty years of rejection ahead!
When and where do you write?
I wrote my first five novels (all firmly locked away in a drawer) as a full-time stay-at-home mum and consultant, so my only time to write was from 5 am until 7 am each morning including on the weekend. I think the diligence of keeping to such a schedule for many years trained my creative brain to kick in at that particular time, which I sometimes rue as an empty-nester! I will write anywhere there’s a chair but my favorite place is the little writer’s shed in our garden—just far enough from the family to forget about mundane responsibilities, but close enough for them to bring me cups of tea.
What are you working on now?
I am finishing up the first draft of my third book for my publisher. A character from my debut novel reappears in my sophomore effort Bloomsbury Girls and now one of its characters will be the focus of this new one. In this way my first three books share connective tissue, allowing me to indulge in some world-building as well as never quite leaving my characters fully behind. They got me through some really difficult times, so I appreciate that!
Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?
Never, I am sorry to say. There is a lot going on in here [knocks own head]. But as with everything in life, I am sure my time will come!
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
From my agent—always from my agent: “if you write like you know where you’re going, the audience will follow you anywhere.” This fostered so much creative latitude in me that I had a fictionalized version of Daphne du Maurier instruct one of the aspiring writer characters of Bloomsbury Girls with these exact same words.
What’s your advice to new writers?
Although it is important to build the writing muscle through diligence and perseverance, it is also okay to take a break at times (in my case, a ten-year one!). But do try to keep writing for as long as it gives you pleasure (and I use that word loosely here, as “pleasure” can include hard-earned knowledge or skill) because the goal is to be sitting in the chair, exercising those creative muscles, when the muse strikes. If there is one thing that I have learned about this industry, it is how critical it is to be genuinely and uniquely inspired—which is a huge matter of luck, especially given that publishers are constantly acquiring books in the hope of their resonating with readers in almost two years’ time.
Natalie Jenner is the internationally bestselling author of THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY and BLOOMSBURY GIRLS. A USA Today and #1 national bestseller, THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY was named one of the best books of 2020 by Amazon and Goodreads and has been sold for translation in twenty-one countries. BLOOMSBURY GIRLS released in May 2022 and is a June Indie Next Pick and People Magazine Book of the Week. Born in England and raised in Canada, Natalie has been a corporate lawyer, career coach and, most recently, an independent bookstore owner in Oakville, Ontario, where she lives with her family and two rescue dogs.
