Author of the week

Jenny Jackson

Sometimes the publishing world doesn’t have to look far for a new breakout star, said Celia McGee in The New York Times. Jenny Jackson, 43, who signed a reported sevenfigure deal shortly after cranking out her first novel during the pandemic lockdown, has spent her entire two-decade career as an editor at Knopf and its paperback division, Vintage. She has, she says, “the most boring résumé in publishing.” But she has also fostered the careers of many best-selling writers who were surprised to learn that their industry ally possessed previously hidden writing talent. “It was like finding out your spouse is an Olympic equestrian,” says Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians. Chris Bohjalian agrees, calling Jackson’s instant best-seller, Pineapple Street, “the novel Jane Austen would have written if Jane Austen lived in Brooklyn Heights in the 21st century.”

Jackson’s years of editing others’ work didn’t prepare her for the pain of being edited, said Leigh Nordstrom in WWD.com. “I thought that I was going to be such a professional,” she says. “But it is really funny how when someone kills a joke or when someone writes, ‘Oh, I don’t get it,’ it feels so deflating.” Still, the process resulted in a novel about three women in moneyed Brooklyn Heights that has won mostly positive reviews and has already been optioned for TV. And when the book launched early this month, many of her authors flew into New York City to attend her first readings.

“It feels like my wedding or something,” she says. She’s also planning to continue writing on the side. “I don’t want to give it up,” she says. “It was so fun.”