Beating the Odds

Autumn 2022

After more than a decade into her writing career, Jennifer E. Smith ’03 has arrived.

Jennifer E. Smith ’03 is not a rock star. “I don’t even play the guitar… I might be tone deaf,” she jokes.

Still, the prolific author can identify with one of her newest characters who is a successful indie musician. In The Unsinkable Greta James (Ballantine Books, 2022), the titular character’s career is in jeopardy after she has a public meltdown. Smith hasn’t hit bottom — quite the opposite — but she knows the feeling of uncertainty when your livelihood depends on your creative work.

“You have to have so much confidence and determination; the odds are so long, you have to think you can be the one to do it and make the magic happen,” she says. “On the other hand, it’s a job with no guarantees. There’s no safety net, no matter where you are in your career.”

Now more than a decade into her writing career, Smith is on solid ground, and there’s no indication that that’ll change anytime soon.

She’s written nine young adult novels throughout the years, four of which are coming alive on screen. This past July, Netflix debuted Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between, based on her 2015 novel. Estimated for sometime in 2023, the streaming service will release The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, based on Smith’s bestselling book to date. And she’s developing the scripts for two other potential adaptations: This Is What Happy Looks Like and Field Notes on Love, for which she’s co-writing the script with Lauren Graham (of Gilmore Girls fame) for HBO Max.

Change Is Good

In addition to scriptwriting, Smith is branching out in other ways. The Unsinkable Greta James is her first novel for adults, and her next book under contract is also intended for an adult audience. “As I’ve gotten older, it is a bit harder to reach back to remember what it’s like to be a teen,” she says. “And while I’m so proud of all those books and still would like to continue to write YA at some point, there’s something really nice about writing a character who’s thinking about the same types of things I’m thinking about.”

As with Greta James, Smith found inspiration for another new character through personal experience. Several years ago, her nephew was having difficulty transitioning from one classroom to another, and he was upset every morning before school. When her sister told her about the situation, Smith said: “It’s not his fault. The poor kid comes from a long line of creatures of habit.” She pondered that phrase further and wrote The Creature of Habit (Random House Studio, November 2021), a picture book for preschoolers and early grade school children. It tells the story of a creature who lives on the Island of Habit, and his routine is disrupted by an unexpected visitor who is his total opposite. “It’s about the fact that change doesn’t necessarily have to be a scary thing,” Smith explains. She wrote the book before the pandemic started but says that it’s become even more relevant in recent years. “As we’ve seen, you can’t always control what comes onto your little island. Some changes can be hard and scary, but some can be good. And if you do step off the path you’re on, it can open your eyes in new ways and show you things you might not ever have seen before.” The book has been so well received that Smith is writing a sequel called The Creature of Habit Tries His Best.

The Long Game

All of this success seems like a windfall (which is also the title of a 2017 novel by Smith), but it’s arriving after more than a decade of ups and downs.

“I feel really fortunate… I also feel that it’s such a good reminder that this is a long game,” she says. “Everything happening right now is the culmination of things that have been happening for a really long time.”

Books take several years to write; there have been some she didn’t finish. After novels are optioned for film, they can bounce around to different studios and producers, which was the case with Hello, Goodbye. Throughout Smith’s career, there have been books under contract that didn’t sell as well as expected and books she wrote just for herself that have taken off.

There was a point early on when she thought, “This isn’t going to be a viable career option for me.” She had written two books that didn’t get published and then did publish two others, but sales numbers were low. Smith decided to take a break from writing and focus on her full-time job as an editor at Random House — which the English major loved, but it was a fallback. “I knew I wanted to be a writer from an early age… [but] I don’t think I ever really believed I would be able to support myself.”

Ten months into that break, she had an idea for a book she wanted to write, even if it didn’t sell. “It didn’t seem like a big idea to me,” she says. “It was just a story I wanted to tell.” A boutique publisher called Poppy bought it, but “it was not a big advance,” she says. “It was not a highly anticipated book. They just liked it too.”

In “one of those truly organic things that happens sometimes in publishing,” The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight caught on through word of mouth. It sold in more than 30 languages in other countries and “put my career on a different path,” Smith says.

Now, 10 years later, she’s having “a thrilling year.” Smith adds: “But it’s also the result of years of hard work and lucky breaks and fortunate timing. It’s like the saying about London buses: you wait and wait and none come along, and then three come along at once.”

Two degrees of Nora Ephron: Smith’s first job after Colgate was for International Creative Management, which represented Ephron. “I had the chance to meet her…. She will always be a big inspiration in terms of writing and romantic comedies,” says Smith, whose favorite rom- com is You’ve Got Mail. “I love everything she’s done. I love everything she’s written. She was incredible.”