BREAKING NEWS: Jenny Han Remembers Her First Book Deal Journey: ‘Making Kraft Macaroni and Cheese on an Illegal Hot Plate’.giang

Jenny Han still remembers the moment she learned she got her first book deal — and what she was doing at the time.

The author of The Summer I Turned Pretty author spoke with Jenna Bush Hager on the host’s Open Book with Jenna podcast on Jan. 9, and said she learned that she sold her first book when she was studying in New York.

“I was making Kraft macaroni and cheese on an illegal hot plate in my dorm,” Han recalled. “I had an illegal hot plate because we didn’t have stoves. We just had a convection oven.”

“So I was cooking it furtively, and then my agent called and told me, and then I was like, ‘Oh my God. My noodles are gonna, like, go soft,’” she said. “My mind was racing. It was such an exciting, thrilling moment.”

Han also reflected on her early career, in which she had to balance working at a library with her author aspirations.

“I went to work a few days a week, and then the other days were for my writing,” Han said. “But on a work day, I wasn’t gonna sit there and come home and write. My mind was too tired. So I needed just that structure for myself because I was young. I’d never had a full-time job before.”

Her boss at the time, also named Jenna, was supportive of her writing.

“She was always like, ‘Your book writing comes first,” Han said. “In fact, The Summer I Turned Pretty came out while I was working at that job.”

Han served as co-showrunner on the Prime Video adaptation of the first novel in her YA trilogy, about a teenage girl caught in a love triangle between two brothers. The series’ third season is set to release in summer 2025. Han also executive produced two of three Netflix movies based on her book series To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.

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“It’s different when you have a TV show or movie … ‘cause you have a lot more collaboration and people helping you tell that story,” Han said, of what that transition was like.

By contrast, the relationship between author and reader is more one-on-one.

“Like, we’re sitting here together for this story, and you feel like you know me because you do know me, because those are my words, and there’s something really special about that relationship of author and reader.”

And when she’s writing her novels, Han says that the person she initially wants to please most is herself.

“I have to be so excited. I have to love it,” she said. “Otherwise, you can’t really keep going. You lose energy if you’re just thinking about other people.”

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“I think when you’re telling the story, you have to try as hard as you can to write with the door closed and keep it really sacred and private to you. And then, when it’s ready, the doors open, and then people can judge it how they’re gonna judge it,” she continued. “But you have to please yourself and be your first audience, in a way.”