10 Questions with Jennifer Whiteford
Jennifer Whiteford is one of those people I only know from Instagram, and yet feel genuinely connected to. This is because she consistently shows up online in a way that feels authentic, warm, and often hilarious. She has impeccable taste in books and music, a very adorable dog, and is JUST SO COOL!
So, when I saw the Publishers Weekly announcement for Jennifer’s debut Romance novel Make Me a Mixtape, I knew it would be great. Even still, I was blown away by how special it turned out to be. I’m not traditionally a huge romance reader, at least compared to some of my friends, but this book might as well have designed specifically to win my heart. Coffee, Brooklyn, punk music, cozy fall vibes— it has it all! More importantly, the writing is sharp, the characters are diverse and incredibly well-realized, and the romance feels both very sexy and very sweet. I was totally swept away!
Jennifer Whitefore (she/her) lives in Ottawa, Ontario, with her partner, children, dog and record collection. She writes regularly for Razorcake, a long-standing punk publication. She was also a founding member of the "all girl, all rock" band Sophomore Level Psychology. With those rock 'n roll days behind her, she now mostly stays home and reads. Find her on Instagram at @jenniferwhitefordwrites.
1. Were you a bookish kid? Were reading and writing important you growing up? Were there any books from growing up that left a mark?
I was absolutely a bookish kid. We moved a lot and traveled a lot when I was young, so books offered an anchor as well as just a way to pass the time when we were traveling, since this was all before streaming services and digital devices. I have always been an anxious person and as a kid I found it very soothing to re-read the same books over and over again. I have a memory of packing for a trip when I was eight years old and just filling my backpack with paperbacks by Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume. The book from that era that I probably was the most obsessed with was Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. I re-read it with one of my own kids recently and it doesn’t totally hold up, but some of it was still magical to me. I’ve also been re-reading Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books and Judy Blume’s Fudge books with my kids and those ones hold up much better. I am shocked by how I remember sections of them word for word. I must have read them all dozens of times. Later, as a teen I read everything I could get my hands on, a lot of Beat Generation writers, as well as Margaret Atwood, Sylvia Plath, Jane Austen, James Joyce, Anne Tyler, J.D. Salinger. I worked at a library when I was in high school, so I was just constantly discovering books and writers. My parents didn’t have strong opinions about what I was reading, so I just read whatever looked good to me.
2. You write fantastic articles for the punk publication Razorcake. Was this your first time writing long-form fiction? If so, what was that process like? Did you come up with the story premise first and then decide that a romance novel would be the right form for it, or did you decide you wanted to write a romance novel and then come up with the premise?
I’ve tried longer fiction for years before now, with varying degrees of success. When I was in my last year of high school I wrote a novella “for fun” and then had no idea what to do with it, so I just let my friends read it and then put it in a drawer. After university I wrote another novella that a friend’s small press put out. I think after that I assumed that I would go on to write grand works of literary fiction, so I kept trying and failing to do that.
I eventually decided that I just wasn’t cut out to be a novelist and focused on writing non-fiction pieces, usually about music. But then during the early lockdown days of 2020 I found myself daydreaming all the time, telling myself stories that I ended up thinking I could turn into a romance novel. I’d been reading romance novels for years; I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me to try to write one. It took being stuck at home with my two young kids in that stressful, uncertain situation for weeks on end for me to think, ‘What’s the opposite of this?” And the answer to that question turned out to be a romance story about young cute people living in New York. I ended up kind of desperately throwing myself into writing a book and sending out one chapter per week to a group of friends. That was the book that eventually got me my agent, but it didn’t get picked up by any publishers.
While I was querying that first book, I started writing another romance novel, which became Make Me a Mixtape. I was able to correct the mistakes that I’d made with my first book and now I’m so excited to keep working within the genre to tell new stories.
3. Setting plays a really big role in this story, both in terms of the vibe and the plot. Why Brooklyn? Did you consider a Canadian setting at any point, or did this always feel like it belonged in New York?
I kind of locked myself into New York because I created this “universe” when I wrote my first romance novel- the one that didn’t get published. I had my heart set on writing three books that were loosely connected. All the main characters live in Brooklyn, which is the only area of New York that I’ve spent any significant amount of time in. It seemed like a good setting for my artsy weirdos, plus I have a close friend who lived there for decades and is always willing to fact-check my Brooklyn stuff. I’d consider a Canadian setting for a future book, as long as it isn’t Ottawa because it’s more fun to imagine somewhere that I don’t already live when I’m coming up with these stories and characters.
4. This is a work of fiction, but it draws on your real experience as a member of early 2000’s all-girl punk band, Sophomore Level Psychology. What about that experience, or that about that world, did you want to convey in Make Me a Mixtape?
My band experience was quite different from Allie’s, but there was some basic knowledge I gained as a member of the band that really helped lay a foundation for Allie’s memories of her own band. Just understanding the logistics of practice spaces, transporting and unloading gear, dealing with people’s strange perceptions of an all-female band were all things that I experienced that are mentioned in the book. I think also that being in a band creates strong and complex relationships between bandmates and I used that idea to expand on Allie’s feelings about her bandmates and her experiences with them.
Also, many of the stories in the book stem from things I’ve experienced just being a female person who has been a music fan for years. There’s one scene where Ryan is shocked that a guy ignores Allie and speaks to Ryan instead as though he was the one who had important roots in the music scene. Allie ends laughing at Ryan about it, she’s glad that he noticed and was upset by it, but she lets him know that this kind of thing happens all the time. That definitely comes directly from my experience as a female music fan. This is just one example, but I remember when my son was little he really liked listening to Wilco songs, so I got him a little kid-sized Wilco t-shirt. We were at a kid’s birthday party and he was wearing the shirt and this other dad said to my husband, “Is Milo wearing a Wilco shirt?” My husband isn’t into music (I know. It’s weird) and had zero idea what Wilco even was, so I said, “Yes, I got it when I saw them last year.” And the guy just kept talking to my husband about all the times he’d seen Wilco. Eventually my husband had to say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jennifer is the one who likes music.”
5. One of the many things I loved about this story was how diverse the characters were, in terms of ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class, and religious background. What’s more, that diversity never felt like box-ticking, or like an element that was layered on top of the events and dynamics of story. Instead, each of your characters felt complex and fully realized, and the many facets of their identities that you depict felt organic and integral to how that character interacted with others and moved through the world of the story. One particular aspect of this diversity that I wanted to mention was your creation of a male romantic lead with a bigger body. I was so impressed with how you handled this, always making it clear that Allie didn’t just tolerate Ryan’s body— she found it incredibly hot! Can you talk a little bit about this choice.
Thank you! I am happy that the diversity of the book is working for readers. I always find reading books with diverse characters more interesting. Ryan’s body type was a conscious choice mostly just because I don’t see fat guys in romance books as much as I see fat women in romance books (not that there’s enough of those either.) Also, I just find guys who look like Ryan really cute, and if you’re writing a romance hero it’s good to have them be someone you’d be attracted to in real life. A lot of romance novels have buff dudes as the main characters, but that’s just not the kind of guy I’ve ever found myself interested in. I also think Ryan’s size, and his sporadic concerns about it, allow him to understand how other people might feel when they are outside of the constrictive “norms” that society imposes on us all. He’s been made fun of for being fat so it’s not a huge leap for him to, for example, understand how it might have been hard for Allie and her female bandmates to navigate a male-dominated music scene, or to understand how to be an ally for his non-white and queer friends.
6. While the romance between Allie and Ryan is undeniably the beating heart of this book, there is so much else going on here. I love that you really explore the challenges and the value of adult friendship. Allie’s arc is also as much about figuring out what she wants to do with her life as it is about finding romantic love.
Totally. I always knew this was going to be a romance novel and so the relationship between Allie and Ryan had to be the main plot point, but I was actually drawn to the book idea initially because of the story of Allie having lost the friendship with her former bandmate Jessi. I have one high school friend in particular who I lost touch with completely after a silly gripe when we were in our mid-twenties, and I think about her often and regret that we lost such a strong friendship. Those feelings were what I drew from for Allie when it came to her sense of loss regarding her band and her bandmates. To me, that is just as interesting as her building the relationship with Ryan, and both things are intertwined in the story.
7. Even before I had read the blurb for this book, I was all in. This is because I LOVE mixtapes (and mixed CDs!) so, so much. What was your relationship to mixtapes growing up? With the holiday season just around the corner, I’m wondering what would be on your ultimate holiday mixtape?
I was a very dedicated mixtape maker for most of my teens and twenties. I was obsessed with the mechanics of the process, how to pick the perfect first song and how to pace everything after that. I loved making mixes for myself and for friends and crushes. That said, I’m actually a terrible mixtape recipient. There have only been a handful of people in my life who have made mixes that I’ve really loved and taken to, like the friend who introduced me to Talking Heads via a mixtape or the guy I once had a crush on who started a killer mix with Little Richard’s “Jenny, Jenny”. But most of the time I’m such a moody music fan, if something isn’t exactly what I want to hear at that moment, I’ll just turn it off, which makes it hard to have mixes curated for me by other people.
I have a few holiday mixes that I love to put on when the winter months hit. One favourite is just non-christmasy songs about winter which has songs like “Coldest Night of the Year”, “Stay Young, Go Dancing” and “White Winter Hymnal”. But for a Christmas mix I love some traditional songs like Mahalia Jackson “Go Tell it on the Mountain” but then also more cynical holiday songs like “Common Cold” by Hawksley Workman and “It’s Christmas Time (Let’s Just Survive)” by Kathleen Edwards. Oh, and I love Nathanial Rateliff’s version of “Santa Baby”. That would have to be on there too.
8. Tell me about your workspace. Are there conditions/rituals/objects/snacks that you require in order to write effectively?
I dream of having a workspace and rituals and objects! But honestly as someone who currently works full time at a non-writing job, is also the parent of two school-aged kids and the caretaker of one giant dog, I tend to just grab the opportunity to write whenever I can. Lying in bed, standing in the kitchen, slumped on the couch. The closest thing I have to a regular workspace is Planet Coffee which is an amazing café in downtown Ottawa that is a short walk from my house. When I really need to get work done, I go there on a Saturday or Sunday, find the quietest table possible, get a coffee and a cookie, and hunker down to get through a large chunk of writing or editing. My biggest dream is to have a writer’s shed in my backyard, but I think I’d have to be writing for the bulk of my time to feel okay about it. Otherwise, I’d just be looking longingly at the shed as I left for work every morning.
10. If you could throw a fantasy dinner party with any 10 people from the literary and/or musical world, who would you invite? What would you eat? Playlist?
Honestly, as a lifelong introvert this sounds very overwhelming to me! I would probably switch it to a breakfast for five people if I had my choice. I’d invite Hanif Abdurraqib, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Jasmine Guillory, and Anne Patchett. I’d serve pancakes and vegan sausages and smoothies and tea and coffee, and we’d eat outside if it was nice. I’d probably choose lots of mellow songs, like Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, William Prince, Sharon Jones, Noah Kahan, Avett Brothers, and Joan Armatrading.
11. What’s next for you? Any new books on the horizon?
I am just finishing up some edits on my second romance book, which right now is called On the Sunny Side. This one is also about music, but country music instead of the punk scene. The main character, Sunny, is a songwriter who ends up pretending to be the girlfriend of a failing country music superstar so she can write songs for him to pass off as his own. It’s different from Mixtape in a lot of ways- it’s a road novel, it’s focused on active musicians, the main character has a close relationship with her family- but I think (I hope!) fans of Mixtape will still love the music, heart, and humour that are in this one.
I also do a monthly newsletter on Substack called Songs That Remind You of Feelings where I write about the music and books that I’ve been enjoying and how they connect to various stories and memories from my life.
And I’m sure I’ll write more romance novels about music-obsessed weirdos, because that is my favourite thing to do.
