Posted on July 13, 2018 at 8:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
It’s been almost four years since we interviewed author Carolyn Jourdan, who went from high-tech environmental lawyer at the U.S. Senate to bestselling author.
Life took a sharp turn during her legal days when her mother — who ran Jourdan’s father’s medical office — had a heart attack.
What was supposed to be a weekend home caring for her parents turned into four years.
Jourdan, in her words, was overqualified for jobs in the rural Smoky Mountains, so she decided to write a book — “I figured the only thing of value I had to sell was a comedy about my spectacular career disaster.”
We can’t speak for whether that was the only thing of value she had, but it certainly was a thing of value.
Heart in the Right Place, her memoir about leaving Capitol Hill and returning home to rural Tennessee, was a Wall Street Journal bestseller and landed on many lists of best books of the year.
When we talked to her in 2014, she had also added well-reviewed fiction to her oeuvre, and her momentum has kept up since then.
She’s now a USA TODAY, Audible, and five-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author and has landed on prominent must-read lists about national parks and the environment, alongside such names as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Ken Burns, Lewis and Clark, and Bill Bryson.
Check out her past Q&A with us to fill in the blanks between life in her parents’ basement and on top of book-sale lists.
And if you hope to achieve the same heights that she has, Jourdan’s advice is short and sweet: “Keep writing. And keep marketing.”
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Learn more about Carolyn Jourdan on her website, where her books can also be purchased; like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.
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Categories: Author Interview