As a former TV producer turned novelist, Sophie Cousens’ books have been published in over 20 languages. Her previous novels—including This Time Next Year and Before I Do—have delighted readers around the world with their warmth, humor, and honest portrayal of love in all its messy, beautiful forms.
Today, we sit down with Sophie to discuss her decade of experience producing some of our favorite TV shows like The Graham Norton Show and Big Brother and how that valuable experience behind the scenes in television shaped the way she now tells stories as a novelist, allowing her to thread the needle between heartfelt and funny, heartwarming and satirical. We talk about her approach to writing—does she prefer to start with a character or a plot?–as well as how she brilliantly employs a variety of familiar rom-com setups (friends-to-lovers, missed connections, etc.) yet, they never feel overt or cliché.
If you’ve ever tried to date post-divorce, juggled motherhood with figuring out who the heck you even are anymore, or questioned whether love in your 40s is even worth it—you’re going to enjoy today’s conversation about our June JHBC selection, Is She Really Going Out With Him? With nods to fairy tales, dating apps, and the iconic Joe Jackson song that inspired the title, the book asks: how do you start over when you’re not 22 anymore—and how do you know when it’s real?
Katie Sturino is one of those people who makes you feel instantly braver just by being in the room. With her bold fashion choices, unfiltered honesty, and joyful presence online, the powerhouse founder of Megababe, style influencer, and unapologetic voice for body confidence has inspired so many of us to rethink how we see our bodies and ourselves.
Her first book Body Talk, part memoir, part manifesto, focused on the all too important topic of learning to love the skin you’re in. Now, she’s back—and this time, she’s putting her hand to fiction! Of course, we wanted to talk to this multi-hyphenate about what it’s like flexing yet another new muscle.
Katie and Jen talk about the inspiration behind Sunny Side Up, a book Jennifer Weiner has called a modern-day Bridget Jones’ Diary (without the toxic self-loathing) and Katie shares what the writing process was like, an experience Katie equated to being put through a pasta machine. She and Jen also reminisce about when they first met almost a year ago—backstage at an Oprah special and the grueling decisions they grabbed with (as so many women do for such an event)—what to wear.
Beloved author Wade Rouse—who writes under the pen name Viola Shipman—joins Jen for a heartfelt, hilarious, and deeply insightful conversation about writing, identity, and honoring the women who shape us. Known for his evocative novels rooted in love, memory, and family, Wade shares the origin of his pen name (a tribute to his grandmother), the transition from memoir to fiction, and how Michigan became the emotional landscape for so many of his stories.
In this touching episode, Jen and Wade dive into:
- The joy (and exhaustion) of book tours
- The beauty of writing from grief
- The fight against genre-shaming in publishing
- Why women’s voices in literature matter more than ever
- His latest novel The Page Turner, and what inspired it
- His upcoming project that’s giving Golden Girls a queer twist
Whether you’re a book lover, an aspiring writer, or someone who believes in the power of personal stories, this episode is packed with inspiration, connection, and literary magic.
We need art and beauty now more than ever. In this very special episode with acclaimed poet and writer, Maggie Smith, she shares insights with Jen and Amy from her new book ‘Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life‘ and discusses how creativity is a gift that is present in all of us and that every decision we make is a creative act. In fact, Maggie believes that creativity can serve as a form of homecoming, helping individuals to reassemble themselves amidst life’s hardest challenges.
Their conversation also delves into the writing process and reveals the messy and iterative nature of creating art. Maggie talks about the transformative power of writing, the importance of reframing our experiences with new language, and how to maintain a sense of wonder in life, which is essential for personal growth.
Key takeaways include:
- The gift of your attention is a form of love.
- No one else can tell your story; it must be you.
- It’s never too late to start creating. And, the first draft is always a mess; embrace the process.
The April 2025 JHBC selection, The Light Pirate, is a haunting, lyrical, and original story that takes place in the near future, set against the backdrop of climate-ravaged Florida, with parts of the state going underwater and being abandoned by those who used to call it home. The story follows Wanda—a luminous child born out of a devastating hurricane—as she navigates a rapidly changing world. With elements of literary fiction, speculative realism, and subtle magical undertones, The Light Pirate is a meditation on grief, transformation, resilience, and the relationship between humanity and the natural world. It’s both a warning and a whisper of hope—a reminder that even in the face of collapse, there is still beauty, connection, and light.
In this discussion with The Light Pirate author, Lily Brooks-Dalton, she and Jen discuss:
- How the simple practice of journaling helped Lily evolve her craft and find her own unique voice as a writer
- The ways in which Lily weaves unexpected, real-life texture into her work by marrying her passions in other hobbies and subjects
- The evolving demands on a modern author
- And Lily talks about her next book project titled ‘Ruins’ that explores the fascinating field of archaeology
This month’s JHBC selection, The Berry Pickers, by Nova Scotian author Amanda Peters has found a particularly receptive audience within book club communities, including the Jen Hatmaker Book Club, for exploring universal human emotions and experiences, and for examining unique cultural perspectives. By masterfully blending her father’s compelling stories as a Maine berry picker with her own extensive career in Indigenous governance, The Berry Pickers delves into a unique and original plot surrounding a Mi’kmaw family that grapples with the corrosive effects of guilt and shame, and the possibility of redemption. Peters reveals how the debut novel initially took shape as a short story, but as the beautifully-flawed characters and tendrilled themes began to unfold, the narrative organically expanded into the full-fledged novel that it is now, which has been translated into an impressive 22 languages and has been awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
Cancer is a heavy topic. It’s a hard thing for anyone in the family/support system to talk about. It’s challenging for people on the outside looking in to know what to say. And, no question, it’s an arduous, isolating, and disorienting time for the one living with it. For Tyler Merritt, a favorite around the JHBC community, the cancer journey was/is an opportunity to
He and Jen sit down to talk about This Changes Everything, the recent book which Tyler penned as a humorous and optimistic love letter to his beautiful life following his recent battle with cancer. Written with the same trademark humor, pop culture and musical theater references, (and a sick companion playlist) that we came love in his first book, I Take My Coffee Black, Tyler laces very candid and vulnerable stories from his highly invasive surgery and cancer treatment with anecdotes like a five-page play written about his appendix, subtitles inspired by Taylor Swift songs, and sometimes completely divergent footnotes about the ten best dogs in fiction, to serve as the connective tissue in his much deeper story of joy and healing. It might sound crazy but it works.
Things may unravel at the end of this discussion when Jen and Tyler debate whether words/phrases like “lovers” and “making love” have gone out of fashion and we’re sorry.
Back in the olden days of the 1990s with our dial-up internet and AOL accounts, twelve-year-old Brian Kelly was at home honing his budding interest in travel planning by booking his family vacations and maximizing the reach of his family’s points and frequent flyer miles. Cut to a few decades later and that hobby (which started as a small-time blog powered by affiliate-marketing, which his mom was convinced was a scam) has evolved into a whirlwind operation that the world now knows familiarly as “The Points Guy”.
Brian Sherpas us through all of the twists and turns of booking travel to eliminate the headaches and get THE MOST bang for our buck.
Highlights from this chat include:
- Why Brian thinks this is “the Platinum Age of Travel”
- Mastering family travel – Brian has been to sixteen countries with his two-year-old and is currently planning a month-long trip to Thailand with his newborn so he’s figured this out!
- How, when leveraged correctly, you can finance your travel using your loyalty points
- The 3 main types of rewards to have on your radar
- Surprisingly helpful hacks to avoid jetlag
- And Jen shares a hilarious story about a flight to Spain seated next to a nun that quickly got out of hand
It seemed like a good idea at the time… a twisty, suspenseful thriller set on a cruise ship. How could this not be the perfect story to build a little buzz and excitement in my community ahead of our upcoming Jen Hatmaker cruise? Did we get more than we bargained for?
Ruth Ware’s writing has rightfully been compared to that of suspense-queen, Agatha Christie, for featuring everyday female protagonists often white-knuckling it through some treacherous situations in places where they are isolated from any rescue – a glass house in the woods, an excluded ski resort, a remote tropical island, a boutique cruise ship!
Today, Jen sits down with the author of our January 2025 JHBC pick to navigate the many twists and turns of The Woman in Cabin 10 and why so many of our readers are losing sleep this month thanks to her innate skill of setting a heart-pounding scene.
In this funny, refreshing, and irreverent conversation about parenting, Jen welcomes Caitlin Murray to the show to talk about her Big Time Adulting community space, the blog (and now podcast) that Caitlin started when her 5-year-old son was in cancer treatment for Leukemia, as a place to connect with other moms and parents craving funny, provocative, no-nonsense entertainment to distract themselves from the hamster wheel of life
Like a big sister, Jen offers encouragement to guide Cailin through the years to come, with the two ultimately agreeing that early childhood is hard but middle school is the real shit show.
They commiserate over:
- Spirit Weeks, PTA obligations, and signing reading logs
- The idea of the ‘Hardship Olympics’ that creates unnecessary competition among women / moms
- Comparison parenting and why authenticity resonates more with their communities than curated perfection
- How community and humor that can be found in the everyday chaos of parenting
