Tag: essays

Writing What I Read

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

This week at the SFF Seven, we’re asking: “Do you read in the genre you write?”

What’s funny is that my answer is absolutely yes – but that I didn’t always write in the genre I read. Does that make sense?

I have always read Fantasy and Science Fiction, since I was a little kid, and I’ve been reading Romance since I was old enough to walk to the used bookstore to buy my own books, as my mom wouldn’t let me read “that trash.” (Because she thought Romance was low-brow and anti-feminist, not because of the sex.) But when I started out as a writer, I wrote Creative Nonfiction.

Some of this was timing and coincidence. When I decided I wanted to be a writer instead of a scientist, one of the first classes I took was “Essays on Self and Place,” from a visiting writer at the university. I fell easily into writing essays and had success with them. My first book was an essay collection. And, sure, I read some essays. I read a lot of essay collections and memoir. But I was always reading them as research and reciprocity.

All that time, what I read for pure enjoyment? Anything with a paranormal/SFF element and plenty of Romance.

It was only after my first book came out that a friend – a bookseller who knew my tastes and sold me hardcover releases of JD Robb, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephenie Meyer, and Jaqueline Carey – asked me why I wasn’t writing in the genres I so clearly loved to read.

Funny that. It simply hadn’t occurred to me. But then I started to, I wrote this Fantasy Romance* (not a genre then, but what did I know??) that was SO MUCH FREAKING FUN TO WRITE. I couldn’t believe how much more fun I had writing my crazy tale about a scientist who falls into Faerie, becomes a sorceress, and ends up in a bargain with a fae lord to bear his child. I even got a really nice rejection on the book from Stephenie Meyer’s agent! (Though it took a long time for me to sell it, which is another tale.)

The rest is history. ~ Waves at catalogue of Epic Fantasy Romances ~ I haven’t looked back. Writing what I love to read has absolutely been a great decision.

*The book that became ROGUE’S PAWN

First Cup of Coffee – December 12, 2022

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog, Podcast

Reflections on re-reading my first book – WYOMING TRUCKS, TRUE LOVE, AND THE WEATHER CHANNEL – including thoughts on Taoism, the passage of time, and the ways in which who we are changes and doesn’t.



Still Bleeding – the Worst Rejection Ever

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I had to share this tweet from Agent Sarah. We got the cover flats for THE ORCHID THRONE (out in September 2019, but review copies are going out now – eep!) and they have foil! That’s the shiny stuff on the cover. It shows best in the video from her tweet, but here’s a still pic, in case the video doesn’t play. Super cool, huh? It’s my first cover with foil, and it’s SO PRETTY!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is Knife in the Heart: The Harshest, Meanest Rejections from a Publisher/Editor/Agent. Come on over to hear about mine.

Reflections on Losing Friends

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

tumblr_mc5vf0jUMH1qzozjoo1_500This is a photo from Amanda Palmer’s Tumblr, with the caption “books are home.”

When I saw it go by in my Tumblr feed last night, I thought that I glimpsed the distinctive spine of a book a friend wrote. To the point that I downloaded the photo and magnified to see. I had this idea that it would be Karol’s book and I would write the story about what it meant to see her book on that shelf.

And how I mourn her still.

Even though it wasn’t her book, I had a happy feeling, knowing that her book is out there still and people read it. I know this because they search the Internet for her and sometimes find that blog post and send me messages. I hadn’t intended that, when I wrote it, but now I kind of love that I have that lasting connection to her through that.

I’ve been reading this book, The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women’s True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away, and it’s put me in a reflective mood. The essays are so varied, with different friendships and reasons that they didn’t last. One is about a friend who died, but also a friendship that formed around that death – and then faded away again. One “rule” that I’m extracting from all the stories is one I thought I knew already – it isn’t always about you.

In fact, it rarely is.

I think it’s human nature to believe the world revolves around us. Even though we learn as kids (ideally) that people lead lives when we’re not present, that revelation can be hard one. I remember when my stepkids were little. They would spend every-other weekend and one weekday night for dinner with us. Once they excitedly told us about a new restaurant in town (small town, so big news) and we said, yes, we’d eaten there. They insisted we hadn’t, because they hadn’t yet been. They couldn’t quite grasp that we did things when they weren’t around – as if we retired like companion androids to the closet, when not needed.

Eventually, we grow up and realize that other people have complex external and internal lives that have nothing to do with us. And yet, when a friend turns away, we automatically think it must be something we did. Or didn’t do. Most of the time, though, it’s really about them and what they need.

At any rate, it’s a very interesting book and has given me a lot of food for thought. It’s been lovely, too, to return to reading some nonfiction.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!