{"id":16928,"date":"2026-06-05T16:00:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T23:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogschapman.wpenginepowered.com\/wilkinson\/?st-import=d05c779069308e49d2d3a08314ad4816"},"modified":"2026-07-21T02:08:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T02:08:32","slug":"alumni-books-how-jenny-howard-found-her-voice-in-middle-grade-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/wilkinson\/2026\/06\/05\/alumni-books-how-jenny-howard-found-her-voice-in-middle-grade-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Books: How Jenny Howard Found Her Voice in Middle Grade Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16930 size-medium alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/wilkinson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/06\/howard-300x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/wilkinson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/06\/howard-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/wilkinson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/06\/howard-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/wilkinson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/06\/howard-768x768.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/wilkinson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/06\/howard.jpeg 870w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When Jenny Howard graduated from the University of Southern California, she had her sights set on dramatic writing: theater, screenwriting, maybe a musical or two. Fiction wasn\u2019t exactly the plan. But somewhere between undergrad and now, she found her way to novels. Howard went on to earn her MFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University, where she was awarded one of the program\u2019s very first creative writing fellowships, and has spent the last decade writing books, teaching at Chapman and the Orange County School of the Arts, and raising four children. Her debut middle-grade novel, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Transylvania-County-Jenny-Howard-ebook\/dp\/B0FG4XLGS9\"><i>Transylvania County<\/i><\/a>, is out this July.<\/p>\n<p>The book came to Howard through what she describes as \u201can unusual channel.\u201d After her young adult debut <a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinteen.com\/9780451480194\/when-i-was-summer\/\"><i>When I was Summer<\/i><\/a> came out in 2019, she took on a ghostwriting project for a Hollywood production company \u2013 a middle-grade novel that ended up landing on the desk of Pete Harris, head of publishing at Temple Hill. He reached out through her agent with a one-page concept for what would eventually become <i>Transylvania County<\/i>, and what followed was a years-long collaborative process unlike anything Howard had done before. She wrote sample pages. They developed an outline together. She sold the book on 100 pages and a pitch, then went back and wrote (and rewrote) the whole thing. Four times, start to finish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI enjoyed every step of it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16929 size-medium alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/wilkinson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/06\/Howard-Book-196x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/wilkinson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/06\/Howard-Book-196x300.png 196w, https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/wilkinson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/06\/Howard-Book.png 335w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px\" \/>At the center of the story is Dig Roamer, a kid who\u2019s spent his whole life being told he isn\u2019t enough \u2013 too much trouble, not enough potential. Howard is careful about how she frames this. She doesn\u2019t want Dig to have fully internalized the story others have told about him, because that would be too sad. What she wants instead is to watch him find his way out of the box everyone has tried to put him in. \u201cI want kids to learn how to rewrite their own stories,\u201d she said. \u201cIf a teacher doesn\u2019t think you\u2019re good enough, if a peer, a bully, a friend \u2013 sometimes people put us in a box, and we have to find our way out.\u201d The adventure, the mystery, the spooky stuff, and magical characters are all a delivery mechanism for that core message.<\/p>\n<p>The middle-grade audience wasn\u2019t always where Howard expected to land. She wrote young adult for years, then spent her MFA writing literary fiction for adults. But when the ghostwriting gig dropped her into middle grade territory, something clicked. She had a file of childhood story ideas she\u2019d been holding onto, and suddenly they all made sense. \u201cIt was a lightning bolt moment,\u201d she said. \u201cWhy have I not been doing this all along?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Teaching creative writing at Chapman, Howard says, did something specific for her own work: it taught her to get her ego out of the way. Watching students struggle to take feedback, to let go of lines they loved, made her hyperaware of how much precious attachment can hold a writer back. Now, she says, she can get a revision letter from her editor at Macmillan asking her to rethink a character and just do it. Rewrite the book. Eight weeks. No hurt feelings. \u201cIt\u2019s just about the work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The work itself happens in extraordinary conditions. Howard is currently mothering four children, ages seven, five, two, and (at the time of our interview) three weeks old. She writes in the early mornings at the YMCA near her house. Up at 4:45 a.m., out the door before the rest of the world, laptop open at a bistro table in the hallway by 6 a.m. \u201cPeople who go to work out that early in the morning are not there to chat,\u201d she said, \u201cwhich suits me perfectly.\u201d She estimates she can write for two to three focused hours before heading home to be fully present with her kids \u2013 and has found, counterintuitively, that the constraints of motherhood have made her more productive, not less. The second <i>Transylvania County<\/i> book, already written and currently in copy edits for a July 2027 release, was written almost entirely in those early morning YMCA sessions.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also a third project in the works that hasn\u2019t been announced yet, and Howard mentioned she\u2019s already started writing something new during her maternity leave, because, as she put it, if she doesn\u2019t write consistently, she doesn&#8217;t feel like herself.<\/p>\n<p><i>Transylvania County<\/i> publishes on July 21st from Macmillan. You can find more about Jenny Howard and her work at <a href=\"http:\/\/jennyhowardwrites.com\">jennyhowardwrites.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Jenny Howard graduated from the University of Southern California, she had her sights set on dramatic writing: theater, screenwriting, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":16932,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"custom_author_name":"Ava Brandt (\u201927 Creative Writing, Documentary Film, and LGBTQ studies minor)","chapman_pin_hero_slider":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2749,23,5,2631],"tags":[119,3956,2274],"class_list":["post-16928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-english","category-news","category-wilkinson-college","tag-alumni","tag-alumni-books","tag-mfa-creative-writing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Voice of Wilkinson | Chapman Blogs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/wilkinson\/2026\/06\/05\/alumni-books-how-jenny-howard-found-her-voice-in-middle-grade-fiction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alumni Books: How Jenny Howard 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