Q&A with Jenna Blum

 

Photo by Janna Giacoppo

 

 

Jenna Blum is the author of the new novel Murder Your Darlings. Her other books include Those Who Save Us. She is based in Boston. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Murder Your Darlings, and how did you create your cast of characters?

A: I’ve long been inspired by the question: what makes a woman who has a fulfilling career and a great community–a good life, in other words–go to extreme lengths in pursuit of love? Especially when that love may or may not be too good to be true.

 

Sam Vetiver, the protagonist of Murder Your Darlings, has additional pressures: she’s a mid-life author facing lukewarm book sales and recovering from a divorce, so when a very successful and charismatic male author parachutes into her world, she really goes down the rabbit hole to chase the relationship and find her identity eroded in the process.

I feel like we all know women with codependency behaviors and/or have been these women–I certainly have!…so I wanted to write this book for them and for myself.

 

Setting it within the publishing industry was the icing; I’ve been a career writer since I was 16, and I’ve loved unpacking the details of this weird, wonderful life for readers.

Q: The writer Joseph Finder said of the book, “Is it wrong to call a serial killer novel fun? Because Murder Your Darlings is great fun—a delicious satire of the writing life as well as a genuinely gripping thriller.” What do you think of that description?

A: I love it! My favorite word here is “delicious.” That’s exactly the experience I hope all readers have reading Murder Your Darlings: that they devour it like an ice cream sandwich that you eat in one sitting because it’s so delicious you can’t stop. And don’t we all need some fun? 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

A: I always know how my novels will end–in fact, I know the final sentences, so I write toward that finish line.

 

What changed along the way in Murder Your Darlings is that I thought it would be narrated by Sam and the novel’s stalker, The Rabbit, all the way through, in alternating chapters.

 

But William Corwyn, Sam’s stratospherically successful author lover, jumped in to narrate Part 2, and I was delighted: his perspective gives the novel a huge bolt of dark electricity.

Q: What do you think the novel says about the publishing world?

A: I intended Murder Your Darlings as a love letter to this industry I’ve been working in since my teens. Certainly my agent and editor, who are portrayed in the novel exactly as they are, see it this way (they faux-squabble over who’s the most important).

 

I also pulled no punches and spared no details of what the writer’s life is really like; I think people often imagine writers sit on doghouses like Snoopy and write “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” and everything just flows from there, but it’s much more of a rollercoaster.

 

There are huge ups and downs and smaller joys and paper cuts in between, and it’s a rewarding and perilous way to live. I’m honored to have had a chance to share that.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’ve got three thrillers in the pipeline after Murder Your Darlings, so I’m developing those ideas before I go on tour in January 2026–that way I’ll have them to write when I return!

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Murder Your Darlings has been optioned by Rohm Feifer entertainment! So please keep your fingers crossed we’ll soon see it as a film or series. And the BIGGEST thank you to my readers. Murder Your Darlings, as you’ll see, is a love letter to you, too. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb