We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful J. L. Jensen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with J. L. below.
J. L. , we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
I don’t pressure myself to be a hundred percent perfect and try to appeal to everyone, and I also avoid being so generic to the point to where I don’t appeal to anyone either. Something that gives me a huge boost in confidence and self-esteem is completing my books and art projects. There’s nothing like holding a new copy of a finished book in my hands since it really sparks a passion in me to want to do more.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am focused for 2026 to bring new readers to my books and find new ways to sell my art. I have leaned into my art degree to recreate some of my older book covers, and I have decided to make my Dino Detectives book into a series and start writing a poetry book. I am also creating a series of art to present to beach shops to sell, along with possibly creating a coloring book series. I am currently attending Berkeley edX for a certification in Academic and Business Writing. I would love to work with a publishing house, news website, word of the day segment, cataloging for a museum, editing a blog, editing other author’s books, editing printing for wedding invitations, etc. after obtaining this advanced English certification.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The first quality that impacted my journey would be that I took Pre-AP and AP classes. The AP classes I took gave me college credits while I was still in high school and helped me finish college a year early. The second quality would be looking back at school and assessing what I was best at. I remember when my higher-grade English teachers told me I was a gifted writer and that I was advanced in my English skills. I took that praise as advice to pursue writing. Lastly, the third quality would be that I studied some of the best. I took art history and humanities to further advance the style I would end up using for my artwork, and I had multiple art teachers and professors over the years tell me that my art has a life to it.
I love to make people happy by bringing joy with my artwork and my writing. I am very passionate about making reading fun for anyone who encounters my books, from young readers to adults. I have been reading classic literature, which is also another way for me to seek out the best. I have a particular interest in the late 1800’s because it was a time of radical creative writing. Jules Verne is an author from that era that I would recommend since he is known as one of the “Fathers of Science Fiction.”
Some advice that I would give is to encourage others to remember back to when people told them they were really good at something, to remember how they felt doing that activity, and that they should take that skill and that feeling and pursue something that they would not only be good at, but be happy doing it. I love the feeling of finishing an art project or holding a newly published book in my hands. I took the advice of those who told me that I was really good at something, and I have been happy and successful because of it.
Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury was a book that I thought was thought-provoking and played an important role in my development. It was about how books were banned and had censorship, and that would really impact my life and work if my books were randomly chosen to be banned or censored since I am an author myself. A memorable quote from the book for me was, “Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget.” I agree with this quote that books really are legacy items. They last for centuries and show a person’s thoughts, imagination, and creativity from that time period. We know about history from mostly writing/books and art/paintings, so Fahrenheit 451 really stood out to me when I read it in high school. And it later on inspired me in college (when I wrote my first book) to want to write books and have them in the Library of Congress and in readers’ hands.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jljensen.carrd.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/j.l.jensenauthor/
- Other: https://www.deviantart.com/jennabunnies
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