By Katie Doolittle
The blurb for Jennifer Shaw Wolf’s debut novel promises a fast-paced and heart-wrenching read:
Allie can’t remember the night her boyfriend, Trip, died.
She knows they were driving on the cliff road.
That Trip lost control.
That she woke up later broken and bruised.
That somehow, she survived.
All Allie has left are the scars, a constant reminder of Trip. Not ready to face the truth, she tries to ignore a nagging feeling that the crash wasn’t an accident. Soon Allie’s memories collide with a dark secret about Trip she’s kept for too long. Caught somewhere between her past and her future, can Allie find the truth so she can finally break free?
The novel, Breaking Beautiful, is a dark young-adult mystery with strong romantic elements. It’s an excellent book, and Wolf’s second endeavor, Dead Girls Don’t Lie, is just as gripping. In brief: a girl finds out that her estranged best friend is dead, just forty-five minutes after receiving an unexpected text message from her.
Scary! Fascinating!
Irresistible.
Yet in contrast to her edgy and suspenseful plots, Wolf’s personality is both open and welcoming. A longtime Lacey resident and mother of four, she knows both her setting (Washington) and her subject (teenagers) quite well. She’s also well-versed in the young adult genre, often abbreviated as “YA.”
Wolf became a devoted reader of YA when her daughter was around nine or ten; they began reading books together. As a mother, reading YA novels was quite illuminating. And as an aspiring writer, it was life-changing.
“I had always wanted to be an author,” Wolf explains. But the everyday details of life took her down another path. It was reading Twilight that inspired Wolf to take her dream more seriously. “The author was my age, had three kids, and graduated from the same college as me. I thought, ‘I can do this, too.’”
Wolf benefited from the advice of a published family member. She was told that too much early attention on publishing her work or even studying the market trends would be an inspiration killer. “Focus on that too much and you might never finish,” Wolf warns other aspiring writers. Instead, she advises that anyone wanting to be a novelist should… well, just write a novel. “Write from your heart,” she says. “Beginning to end.” Wolf actually wrote two books this way—a romance and a follow-up sequel. Her only audience was her niece. “She didn’t really give me feedback,” Wolf remembers. “She just kept telling me to write faster, or asking if I had more.”
It was Wolf’s third manuscript that got published as Breaking Beautiful. She wrote it during any “found time” that a busy stay-at-home mom could snag: sitting in the car during sports practices, riding in the passenger’s seat on day trips, or just staying up late to get another part down on paper. Even today, this remains Wolf’s preferred mode of writing. The long stretches while her kids are in school can be daunting; she finds it’s easier to focus by being constantly productive during little chunks of time.
Publishing as a YA author has opened all kinds of doors for Wolf. Recently, she flew to Hollywood to pitch a TV series based on Breaking Beautiful. With assistance, she even wrote the pilot episode—an honor Wolf attributes in part to her broadcasting degree from Brigham Young University.
Thrilling though that experience might be, however, many of Wolf’s favorite opportunities are happening closer to home. She’s done several author tours through school libraries, speaking to teens about the writing process and encouraging their love of reading. She even offers several workshops for the classroom. One workshop encourages students to consider the public personas they create on social media. Wolf calls it “What Message Are You Sending?” Another more traditional creative writing workshop, “The Big What If?” covers plot, character, and conflict.
Visiting schools is a natural fit for Wolf, a long-time volunteer in education. And it certainly helps that Wolf actually enjoys the age group she writes for and about. “I like teenagers,” she explains. “That time of life is new and exciting, and so potentially dangerous. My books are about bad things happening, and then the getting-over-it part.” She sees reading as a potential exercise in how to deal with difficulty, a sort of virtual experience with built-in catharsis. Providing that experience for teens—and getting to meet her fans in person—is one of the most rewarding parts of being a published author.
Of course, the best aspect of publication is even more immediate. “My kids can see that I had a dream, worked hard, and achieved it,” Wolf smiles.
Wolf’s books, Breaking Beautiful and Dead Girls Don’t Lie, are both available through Amazon and at the Olympia Barnes and Noble. To learn more about Wolf, her books, or the possibility of scheduling a writing workshop, visit her official website.
