Hey, everyone. I hope you're having a great summer. I wanted to say hi and let me know that a podcast announcement is just around the corner. But until then, a little listening fun. I wanted to share my recent conversation with the beloved author, Sarah J. Mass.

She's been in love with fantasy novels since she was 12 years old.

Three decades later, the author is a force in that genre and in the publishing industry

overall.

She's written over 15 books, sold more than 38 million copies, and is a number one New York Times best-selling author.

With the encouragement of her teacher, she drafted a series of books at the age of 16, before

scrapping them all to start fresh, and then went on to publish her first book, Throne of Glass,

a slight tweak to her original title at the age of 26. Mass writes fierce and grounded

female characters, and she herself is a force. She's a mom of two who balances parenting and writing

with help from her husband who she met on her first day of college. Mass has a large and loyal fan base,

and with the help from TikTok's book talk,

her fandom only continues to grow.

And Mass isn't stopping anytime soon.

She continues to gift her readers with new books

and has the next four years of releases planned out.

She reveals the joy that writing brings her and what her biggest

hope is for her readers. I'm Jenna Bush Hager. This is Read with Jenna.

Sarah, do you remember the moment you first fell in love with writing?

I think I was about 11, 12 years old, and I had just discovered fantasy books for the first time.

I had loved fairy tales when I was younger, and then I kind of like stopped

reading a little bit around like seventh grade. I was like too cool for it. And I had this

amazing teacher in seventh grade who called my parents in for a conference. And I was like,

...