Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Anderson.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I took a roundabout path to Nashville. I’m from a small town in Southern Illinois named Eldorado. After graduating from the University of Illinois, I had a series of fairly short-lived jobs in Illinois, Indiana, and eventually Tennessee before I finally moved to Nashville with no job prospects but the determination to make the move stick. Which it did, thanks to landing a job at WSM Radio as a copywriter. That position led to working on a nationally syndicated radio show, produced by TNNR. When the hosts Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase took the show to Jim Owens and Associates, I went with them. I wrote and produced The Crook and Chase Countdown for well over a decade until I decided to try my hand at my lifelong dream of writing fiction. This year, I am releasing my third full-length book — BUKU: Speak of the Devil — the final installment in my dystopian series about genetic tinkering gone wrong.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There was nothing smooth about my journey, at least in the beginning. Finding work in my chosen field of advertising required moving away from home. I had to move again when I was fired from my first job out of college. The next one paid poorly, so I chased an opportunity to another state, only to be fired once more before deciding to make my way to Nashville. From my hometown to college to four jobs in quick succession, I lived in three different states in six different towns in as many years. I was single at the time and never made a lot of money. It was a struggle. Now, I look back at those years as a training ground. I learned not just what to do (and not do) in different work environments. I became a survivor. Definitely a saver. I learned how to weather change, but ultimately to welcome it. I’m glad I lived through those years. I’m even happier to have them behind me!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a writer. I think I understood that when I was in grade school, writing poems. It was affirmed by Mr. Rhine, my middle school language arts teacher, who had us write short stories and term papers. I wrote speeches while on a forensics team at Southeastern Illinois College. I chose to major in advertising at the University of Illinois because I figured I’d be pretty good at writing copy. Throughout my career, most of my jobs centered around writing. None more so than producing The Crook and Chase Countdown, where I scripted major chunks of the show.
However, so much of that was structured. School had assignments. Speeches had defined topics. Ad copy had instructions from the client. The Countdown had strict time considerations and a map t
o follow to the number one song. It was a wonderful training ground. I learned how to be deliberate with my words. When to be succinct. When to persuade. How to use humor. How to write dialogue.
Because my days were filled with writing, I didn’t seriously attempt to write fiction until I stepped away from full-time work and began freelancing. That’s when I discovered that all of the writing I had done to that point was just the foundation. A solid one, for sure. But it’s all on you when you write fiction. The assignment. The topic. The ideas – the big one and all the little ones. The research. The rules you choose to follow. The tone and the genre and the characters and the audience and the theme and the beginning and the end and that oh-so-difficult middle. Because I self-publish, I also had a long list of other tasks to learn.
You ask what I’m most proud of? I’m proud of surviving my early setbacks and building a career. I’m proud that I was able to support my family while my husband attended law school and launched a practice. I’m proud of working with a small team to produce a nationally syndicated radio show, week after week, year after year. But though my earnings have been pretty minuscule to date, I believe I’m most proud of being an author of books. My BUKU series, now complete with three books and a novella, is on Amazon, with the final installment, BUKU: Speak of the Devil, released this month. (August 2026)
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
When I give advice to young people, I make sure to point out how utterly I failed at the beginning of my career! I was fired from two of my first three full-time jobs. Those were humbling experiences after being valedictorian of my high school (albeit very small) class. But failure is not only inevitable, it’s an effective teacher. We shouldn’t shy away from it. There are things we can only learn from failure.
Another piece of advice I like to pass on is that I graduated with a degree in advertising, but I wound up producing a country music countdown show. My first computer was a Radio Shack console that hooked up to a tv, and yet, years later, I worked on websites and learned how to digitally edit audio on ProTools. After a successful career, I chose to leave it behind to start from scratch. I’ve had to master at least a dozen new programs and apps, only a few of which directly relate to writing. But they are all necessary to the business of being a self-published author.
Bottom line, we don’t have to be hemmed in by our early choices and education and defeats. We should always be striving to meet new challenges, even if it means risking failure.
Pricing:
- BUKU ebook 4.99 on Amazon
- BUKU paperback 14.99 on Amazon
- All BUKU books are in Kindle Unlimited.
- BUKU: Speak of the Devil – releasing this month!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jenniferandersonwriter.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferandersonwriter/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61591132937487
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferandersonwriter/
