Interview: J. R. Hart

Today I’d like to welcome J. R. Hart to the blog, to talk about Miss Claus, their latest release. It has the dubious distinction of being the book that most recently made me cry buckets! It’s a lovely story and the trans rep is excellent.

So, take it away, JR. Welcome! Why did you decide to pop in today?

Mostly, I’m excited to share more about my upcoming book, Miss Claus. It’s the first time I’ve really deviated from the books I’m typically known for (m/m romance) to work in more non-romance and really speak from the heart. While all of my characters have pieces of me and my frame of reference worked in, Kris’s view of her transgender identity, her progress through a relationship where she’s manipulated and gaslit quite a bit, and her love/hate relationship with local politics, all while reaching for a huge goal? She’s truly a girl after my own heart and I feel connected to her in many ways, which makes me want to talk more about her story!

What started you writing?

Writing has been a complicated journey. As an early reader, I’ve always been fascinated by stories, and when I was in second grade, our teacher held a storywriting contest. The winner would get a little hardbound copy of their story printed by the school. I won! I was hooked on the praise for my storytelling and knew writing would be a huge part of my life. But then I hit high school and an independent study on creative writing. The librarian at the school, who had recently self-published a book of her own, told me very strongly that she saw no future in writing for me, and that even if I enjoyed writing, I’d never be worthy of publication. That crushing blow led to me walking away from fiction writing for ten years. Some of my jobs involved writing to some degree or another – at one time I won a relatively popular food and family blog – but I wouldn’t touch fiction. Eventually, I joined a fandom, but I promised myself I wouldn’t go near writing fanfiction. I could admire from afar. That lasted approximately three days. Then I started what became a 100,000 word fanfiction. Within a year I’d written a million words, and when I started realizing that I exclusively wrote AUs far removed from the source material, I decided that since I preferred creating my own worlds, maybe I’d just dip out of fandom all together and attempt my own novel. I haven’t looked back!

Where do you write?

I love the small desk in my bedroom since it has a wonderful view of my backyard. It truly sparks a lot of inspiration in every season of the year… except when I get distracted by the squirrels chasing each other outside! When I need a change of scenery, though, I’m definitely one to head to the kitchen table or the coffee shop. I’ll write anywhere, though. I even wrote part of Miss Claus inside a Chuck E. Cheese!

What do you like to read?

I love to shake up my reading with plenty of genres and authors, but I have to say that I’m a sucker for anything with a major trope in it. Fake dating? Sign me up. Only one bed? Sold. Enemies to lovers? Oh gosh, I’m in. The tropier the better, which means I find myself in the romance section pretty often!

What are the three books you’d take to a desert island? Why would you choose them?

This is a really hard one. Only three? I’d have to say right now I’d take my major comfort reads. First up would be The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling because it genuinely made me laugh out loud so often, while also allowing me plenty of room to tear up. Second, I’d need to go with Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler. Adler is one of my auto-buy authors where I can’t help but preorder the instant something’s announced. And finally, I’d have to go with my current absolute favorite, at least once it’s released. I was lucky enough to read an ARC of an upcoming novella from Skye Kilaen’s Love at Knockdown series. I loved the first book in the series, but book two had me hooked from page one. 

Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?

Yes! Connecting with fellow authors is a huge part of writing for me. Currently, I’m working on a novella as part of an upcoming multi-author series with some authors I really admire — Skye Kilaen, Roz Alexander, and Karmen Lee are all on board, among others. Another place I’ve really found a connection is in a small discord a writer friend of mine created. Touching base with those friends regularly has been a big motivator! We even sometimes watch television shows together. I also write for a couple of small magazines. Patch Magazine is an independent gaming magazine, and all of us who write for it have a very active group chat every time something new and exciting is released in the indie gaming world.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

When I’m not writing, I’m usually doing something with my hands. I dabble in cross stitch, miniatures at 1:24 scale, love LEGO, and work on an antique needle craft from the 1970s called Bargello. I do have ADHD, which means I tend to go from one intense hyperfixation to another when it comes to my hobbies. Alternately, one of my earliest special interests (I’m also autistic) was the Titanic, so anytime a new article or documentary comes out about it, I essentially stop everything else to watch or read about it.

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

So many things about Miss Claus pull from my own experiences. I think I took my first political petition around town when I was 9 years old, and I’ve always been heavily invested in politics, especially on a small-town city council level. I’ve also long been invested in those awesome scenes from movies like Legally Blonde’s “you were in the shower?” perm courtroom scene, where the lead everyone underestimates manages to really speak eloquently and win everyone over to her side. Scenes like that have long inspired me to want to write a character I felt could really deliver that girl power moment. But underneath it all, Miss Claus is a trans story told from a trans lens, and a story about a fat person told from a fat person’s lens, and a story about parenting told from a parent’s lens.

Miss Claus took me just under a month when it came to producing a first draft. It definitely took more than a couple of sessions at the coffee shop trying to spill 10,000 words at a time onto the page. The editing process definitely took longer, as it often does. I will say, it definitely did a number on my search history, because I read article after article about the history of women as Santa. Of course, many of the stories came from my own experience with small-town politics, some directly ripped from my local City Council’s proceedings, but reframed from a North Pole lens with some massive edits. That was both challenging and exciting.

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