Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessa Hart.
Hi Jessa, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started writing stories when I was about ten years old. I’d fill notebooks with them, and I had this whole system where different chapters and character POVs were written in different colored gel pens.
Writing stayed with me as I got older, even when I wasn’t actively pursuing it. I eventually went to school and studied literature before ultimately becoming a librarian, So books and stories have always been a huge part of my life. But for a long time, actually writing and publishing a novel felt like one of those things I’d get around to “someday.”
Then I had my daughter, and I realized that I want to live a life where I show her she can do anything – that she can be anything. And becoming a mom also taught me that I can do hard things. Like, if I can create a human, I can finally publish my damn book, you know?
So now we’re here. More Than An Encore published on June 6, 2026. I did it!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I went to university to study writing with this very optimistic idea that I’d graduate with a finished manuscript, a bunch of publishing contacts, and some clear path toward becoming an author.
Ha. That is not what happened.
What I actually learned was just how competitive publishing is and how difficult it can be to break into the industry. I learned a lot about writing and became a stronger writer because of it, but I also left feeling pretty discouraged. I think I had gone into it believing that if I worked hard, got the degree, and did everything “right,” becoming a published author would naturally be the next step. Instead, I came away realizing there really isn’t a prescribed path…and sometimes being surrounded by incredibly talented writers makes it very easy to start questioning whether you belong among them.
So, for quite a few years, I just stopped writing. I still loved books. I still had stories in my head. I built a career as a librarian and stayed surrounded by literature, but I had largely put away the idea that I would ever publish something of my own.
But that desire to write came back louder than the discouragement, thankfully. And I think I needed those years away from it. When I came back to writing, I wasn’t the twenty-something version of myself trying to figure out whether I was “good enough” to be an author anymore. I had lived more, read more, worked with books and readers, and had a much clearer idea of the stories I actually wanted to tell.
Publishing More Than An Encore didn’t happen the way I imagined it would when I first went to school for writing. It took a lot longer, and the path was considerably messier. But I think I’m ultimately a better writer because of the road I took to get here.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I write contemporary romance about messy, deeply imperfect people trying to figure out how to love each other while also figuring out how to live with themselves. My debut, More Than An Encore, is a rockstar second-chance romance and the first book in The Crooked Souls Trilogy, which follows the Wyler siblings and the equally complicated people who love them.
I think what I’m most interested in as a writer is what happens underneath the romance. I love all the things that make romance fun, but I’m also really interested in what makes life hard: grief, addiction, family dysfunction, mental health, identity, and the baggage people carry into their relationships. My characters screw up, and I never want love to magically fix them. I want to write stories where love gives my characters something worth doing the work for.
Music is also woven heavily into my writing. Songs become part of how I understand my characters and their emotions, so the music in my books isn’t just there because the characters are rock stars. It’s part of the storytelling. And as a former emo kid – or an elder emo, whatever – I just simply cannot shut up about my music taste.
If there’s something I hope sets my work apart, it’s that combination of emotional heaviness and romance. I can write about some genuinely painful things and still let my characters be make terrible jokes and have softer moments together. I think there’s something very human about laughing in the middle of the worst periods of your life.
What I’m most proud of, though, is simply that I did it. There were years when I wasn’t writing at all and had pretty much accepted that publishing a novel might remain one of those childhood dreams I never followed through on. Then I came back to it, wrote More Than An Encore, and put it out into the world.
Now there are people I’ve never met who know my characters. How freaking cool is that?
What was your favorite childhood memory?
One of my favorite childhood memories is going to my friend’s house almost every Saturday and spending the entire day playing pretend with our little group. Our games were never simple. We created characters, relationships, backstories, ongoing plotlines, magic systems—the whole thing eventually became so complicated that we had to start writing down the lore so we could keep track of it.
We’d pick up the story the next weekend exactly where we left off and just keep building on it. Looking back, I think we were basically writing an extremely elaborate, long-running series without realizing that was what we were doing.
Honestly, between that and my color-coded gel pen stories, I probably should have seen the author thing coming.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.authorjessahart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorjessahart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorjessahart/
