On an early April afternoon in New York Metropolis, because the solar burst by means of low-hanging clouds and bushes exterior my condominium window confirmed the primary indicators of blossoming, bestselling writer and showrunner Jenny Han handled me to a non-public poetry recital.
The entire scenario felt like one thing my 14-year-old self had manifested, with dog-eared, underlined copies of Han’s novels I’ve owned since center college listening in on our name from a close-by shelf. In actuality, it was skilled. Han needed to recite “Jenny Kiss’d Me,”—an eight-line, Nineteenth-century poem by Leigh Hunt—to clarify her newest initiatives. The poem is the namesake of Han’s manufacturing firm and an uncannily apt thesis assertion for the tales she’s telling as we speak, regardless of being almost two centuries outdated. “The poem is in regards to the passage of time and looking out again in your life,” Han informed me, “but in addition sweetly romantic as properly.”
Han’s tales seize the tumult of younger love and rising up with a precision that appears like flipping by means of albums of your individual adolescent reminiscences (and feeling every little thing as deeply as you probably did the primary time round). She debuted in 2006 with Shug, a middle-grade novel she wrote whereas learning on the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wider recognition got here with two high-school romance trilogies, starting with The Summer time I Turned Fairly (printed in 2009) and To All of the Boys I’ve Cherished Earlier than (2014), respectively.
Extra From Harper’s BAZAAR
Now, after a number of of her bestselling novels have been tailored into extensively watched exhibits and films, Han has two sequence arriving this summer time. First, there’s XO, Kitty, a spin-off of the To All of the Boys books and movies, which debuted this month. It follows Kitty Tune Covey, the youngest sibling within the authentic sequence’ household, as she enrolls within the Korean Impartial Faculty of Seoul to get nearer to the reminiscence of her mom, who attended the identical college, whereas determining her personal id (and tangly relationships with different college students). Then on July 14, The Summer time I Turned Fairly will return for a second season on Prime Video. Particulars stay beneath wraps, however it would probably choose up within the fictional locale of Cousins Seaside with the second novel within the Summer time trilogy—and twists within the central love triangle involving narrator Stomach and her childhood mates turned competing romantic pursuits, Conrad and Jeremiah, as they reunite within the city the place they trip each summer time.
Anna Cathcart in XO, Kitty
Christopher Briney and Lola Tung in Prime Video’sThe Summer time I Turned Fairly
Our early April interview ended up being one of many few occasions Han would talk about her upcoming initiatives with a journalist. All through the continuing WGA writers’ strike, which began on Might 2 and contains writers for each exhibits, Han has marched on the picket line with fellow writers and Summer time solid members and sat out from press. She additionally skipped the red-carpet premiere of XO, Kitty to help the strike. “The scenario is consistently evolving and this choice was a extremely laborious one for me,” she informed followers on Instagram, “however all I can do is make one of the best choice for as we speak and hope that we are going to discover a decision quickly that values the laborious work and the creativity of writers.”
Han’s creativeness has spawned blockbuster diversifications with out shedding the heartfelt intimacy that made her books bestsellers. Her tales are largely about teenagers doing teen issues: falling out and in of affection, feeling misplaced or misunderstood, determining what they need in life. Her viewers, nevertheless, transcends a single age group. There are undoubtedly excessive schoolers and school college students who’re residing their first romances and heartbreaks whereas watching Han’s characters expertise theirs. There are additionally mothers and dads who join with the mother and father watching helplessly as their infants develop up and mess up; late-20-somethings like me who found Han as tweens and use her tales to get in contact with our previous selves; BookTok-ers of all ages whose fan edits of their Summer time trilogy ships often make their strategy to Han’s personal feed. (The trilogy has spent the previous yr on the New York Instances bestsellers listing as viewers rediscovered the supply materials.)
Han tells me she’s delighted by how far-reaching her tales have turn out to be. Her work focuses on younger individuals as a result of the massive moments and greater emotions are so new and infinitely relatable. “I believe that anybody can relate to that interval in your life the place you’re experiencing numerous issues for the primary time. You don’t neglect the massive moments in life, and while you’re experiencing it for the primary time, it’s rather more piercing. Every thing is heightened.”
The proverbial “coming of age” second isn’t finite, and that’s what makes her tales resonate. “I believe that we’re at all times coming of age and at all times rising and evolving,” she says. “You don’t cease simply since you’re previous teenage-hood.”
There’s a bittersweetness that comes with making one’s means by means of the guidelines of first dances, dates, and breakups, Han provides. “You don’t return from having that second of actually rising up and realizing how quick life is, and that’s why it’s one thing to be appreciated.”
Han’s expertise for writing relationships with simple chemistry drew bestselling Honey & Spice writer Bolu Babalola to her work. “I had, and proceed to have, a whole-body fizz when I’m to expertise [Han’s] work anew. It’s scrumptious, romantic, actual, heart-tugging,” she tells BAZAAR. “On the crux of her writing is a celebration of romance and love, and aren’t these common? She writes clever relationships, clever younger girls, and writes clever tales. Although the characters are younger, the tales will not be juvenile.”
Take XO, Kitty. The worldwide boarding-school journey may have gone in numerous instructions, however Han and the writers’ room formed it right into a dramedy that explores huge questions on id, relationships, and grief whereas sustaining Han’s signature spark. Viewers who binged all 10 episodes upon its launch despatched it to the highest of Netflix’s U.S. most-streamed present rankings final week.
The brand new sequence, and all of Han’s works, are stuffed with what Babalola calls “chaotic cuties.” These are younger girls of shade who “are difficult, they’re unafraid of want, they make errors, they’re candy, they’re shy, they are often sturdy, they’ll unintentionally damage, they forgive, they are often forgiven,” she explains.
“I believe when some individuals write characters who aren’t normally romantic protagonists ([such as] WOC), there generally is a sense of overcorrection in opposition to stereotypes. The characters then turn out to be a response,” Babalola says. “However Han’s characters are actual and steadiness sweetness and kindness with additionally actually mendacity to your boyfriend out of emotional avoidance. She permits the complete breadth of humanity and permits for fallibility and redemption.”
“My compass in telling tales about younger individuals is that it has to really feel actual,” Han says. “As a storyteller, the aim is that somebody’s going to look at or hearken to a narrative and really feel prefer it’s actual life […] and get misplaced within the spell of the story.”
Certainly one of Han’s best enchantments as a producer and showrunner is how efficiently she’s translated the emotional heft of the Summer time trilogy’s lengthy coming-of-age arc to the display. From behind the scenes of The Summer time I Turned Fairly’s second season, she’s had the additional privilege of seeing her solid develop up together with the characters within the books.
“It’s been truly so beautiful and nearly meta in a means between the second season and the primary, as a result of the actors themselves have grown and matured,” Han says. “You’ll see when the second season comes out that [the actors] do look a bit of bit older, and I really feel just like the characters have actually been by means of one thing over the yr. And I might say the second season goes to the following step of rising up—and all that comes with it.”
The story Han is writing about herself proper now could be one in all intense productiveness and private conviction. (See: Skipping the XO, Kitty premiere to face in solidarity with the WGA strike.) She labored throughout three time zones—in New York Metropolis, Los Angeles, and Seoul—whereas each sequence had been in manufacturing. The one media I can collect Han has watched these days contains TikTok spoilers of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which she mentions in reference to her personal live performance plans (followers know Swift dominates the writer’s writing soundtrack), and cuts of her personal exhibits within the modifying room.
Channeling her intrinsic creativity into her initiatives is leisure sufficient. “Each writing books and dealing on these exhibits, it appears like my creativeness is the restrict,” Han says. If she needs to movie Kitty’s journey of self-discovery on-location in Seoul or spring a 1989 (Taylor’s Model) recording free from the vault to soundtrack the season one finale of Summer time, it occurs.
It’s these particular particulars—mixtape-precise soundtracks and precise settings, mixed with the exquisitely timed brush of a hand or a look throughout a room from one in all her romantic pursuits—that permit Han’s tales to really feel sweeping in scope but deeply private and actual. Nonetheless, she acknowledges that her interpretations of affection and rising up aren’t one hundred pc common, even when the themes are. (Whose might be?) As Han’s viewers has broadened from her authentic print readers, she’s extra centered than ever on writing with the door closed and letting her tales cleared the path. “I believe it may be very easy to get overwhelmed by different individuals’s opinions,” she says. “Writing is difficult anyhow, however placing your self out there may be weak. And the tougher problem is figuring out you’re not for everyone. However for the individuals that you’re for, these are those that preserve you going.”
She displays: “The books that you just write, the artwork that you just make, that’s like a snapshot in time of who you had been at that second. I simply attempt to honor that particular person, at that second in time.”
It’s been almost 15 years since Han printed The Summer time I Turned Fairly. I’m wondering if she has thought-about shifting on from Cousins Seaside or the Tune Covey household to works that aren’t diversifications, after so a few years of those characters residing in her head. “Nicely,” she laughs, “I’ve been doing that, too.”
Someplace in her packed schedule, Han has carved out time to work on a forthcoming authentic film and “a few books,” plural. Extra adult-centric tales are included within the combine, however specializing in a brand new age group isn’t actually the purpose. In any Jenny Han story, “it truly is about coming of age in any respect ages,” she says. “I like tales that really feel optimistic and hopeful. That’s the type of story I need to preserve telling.”
Style Commerce Editor
Halie LeSavage is the style commerce editor at Harper’s BAZAAR. Her type reporting covers every little thing from reviewing one of the best designer merchandise to profiling rising manufacturers and designers. Beforehand, she was the founding retail author at Morning Brew and a style affiliate at Glamour.
