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The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna

270 | Jenny Han (The Summer I Turned Pretty): Writing Love, Longing & Coming of Age

The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna

Meg LeFauve & Lorien McKenna

Tv & Film

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jenny Han - creator, showrunner, and bestselling author of THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY - joins Lorien to talk about the art of writing love, longing, and growing up. From balancing fandom expectations to crafting authentic emotion, Jenny shares how she translates deeply personal themes to the screen, keeps romantic tension alive over multiple seasons, and why writing about first love never gets old. Whether you’re Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah, this one’s for you.  --- Looking for more support on your writing journey? Join Meg and Lorien inside ⁠TSL Workshops ⁠- your first 5 days are free. Episode Links: Jenny Han's website "The Summer I Turned Pretty" on Amazon Prime Check out the TSL merch shop TSL on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky The Screenwriting Life is produced by Jonathan Hurwitz and edited by Kate Mishkin. Email us at thescreenwritinglife@gmail.com. --- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey everyone, welcome back to the screenwriting life. I'm Lorian McKenna, and today we're joined by

0:07.9

the person responsible for one of the most passionate fandom debates in recent memory,

0:12.3

Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah. That's right. We have Jenny Hahn with us today.

0:17.6

Jenny is an executive producer, showrunner, and the number one New York Times bestselling author

0:22.3

behind the series, The Summer I Turn Pretty, and To All the Boys I've loved before. She's a

0:26.9

creator and showrunner of the summer I Turn Pretty, which became the number one show on

0:30.7

Prime Video, the weekend it premiered, and she returned this summer with a highly anticipated

0:34.4

third season, where she also made her directorial debut.

0:38.5

Jenny also served as an executive producer on the hit to All the Boys' Film Trilogy on Netflix

0:43.3

and created its spin-off X-O Kitty, now in its third season. Through her production banner,

0:49.0

Jenny kissed me. She continues to develop and produce new projects for Amazon Studios.

0:53.4

Welcome to the show, Jenny.

0:54.7

Thank you for having me. We can't wait to chat with Jenny, but before we do, let's talk about

0:59.6

our weeks or what we like to call adventures and screenwriting. I'll go first. So I just got back

1:05.6

from a writer's retreat where I mentor. It's called Sinistory and it's up in Ida Wild and it's

1:10.8

four days. And the amazing

1:13.6

thing about it is everyone's, you know, so interested in developing their craft while we're up there,

1:21.0

which is great and everyone's really excited. But mostly it's the lack of mental load I have to

1:25.7

carry because the schedule is really clear.

1:28.3

I know when I'm supposed to eat.

1:29.7

I know where I'm supposed to go.

1:31.0

I know who I'm supposed to talk to in the panels that I'm on.

...

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