Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenna Blum.
Hi Jenna, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started writing when I was four—my dad was a newswriter for CBS, and he wrote for Walter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner, Dan Rather. I grew up with the soundtrack of his typewriter, and all I wanted to do was grow up and be a writer like my dad. I published early, winning Seventeen Magazine’s National Fiction Contest when I was 16, and decided the world owed me a living as a writer—only to find, like so many B.A.s in English, that the world owed me a living in food service. That’s what I did for years while publishing short stories and writing my first novel. (I worked at the New French Kitchen and Cafe in Minneapolis!, among other places…)
My first novel, THOSE WHO SAVE US, was published in 2004; it became a New York Times bestseller because it was embraced by book clubs, and now I am lucky enough to do what I love to do for a living: writing novels, traveling to speak about them, and teaching. Thank you, readers!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m known for my novels, particularly THOSE WHO SAVE US and THE LOST FAMILY—World War II era. THOSE WHO SAVE US is about a German women who become the mistress of an SS officer to protect herself and her little daughter when she’s caught in the Resistance during the war, and the daughter’s quest 50 years later to find out what the mom did to keep them alive, since the mom will never talk about it. THE LOST FAMILY is about a Holocaust survivor who emigrates to the States and starts a new family—only to find that he and his second family are haunted by the family he lost during the war. I just tried a new flavor as well: my new memoir, WOODROW ON THE BENCH, came out in October 2021, about my old black Lab Woodrow and what the last seven months of his life taught me—so like TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE with the lessons coming from a very elegant old black Lab.
I’m also known as an out-of-the-box marketer: for THOSE WHO SAVE US, I talked to 800 book clubs in the Boston area alone! Now I run a social media marketing company called A Mighty Blaze, which has been putting authors and their new books online so they can reach readers in the age of Covid and beyond. I love marketing! And meeting readers….
What were you like growing up?
Loquacious! My mom always said she could tell where I was in the house because she could always hear me talking (to imaginary OR live people…).
Also, conversely shy. I was miserably self-conscious around other kids and spent a lot of time in my head—with the aforementioned imaginary people, which I think taught me to be a writer. I developed my imagination as comfort and entertainment both early and daily.
And I was a voracious reader. I spent every allowance every Sunday on new books. They were my companions as well.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.jennablum.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenna_blum/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JennaBlumAuthor
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Jenna_Blum
Image Credits
Jorien DeVries
Madeline Houpt
Jim Reed
