Posts Tagged Jamie Sumner

Author Interview with Jamie Sumner on Wish You Well

By on August 31, 2026   /   Articles, Author Interviews   /   Leave a comment

Interview with Middle Grade Author Jamie Sumner

Wish You Well by Jamie Sumner book cover

Karen Reeder: Thank you for joining us today. Can you tell us a little bit about Wish You Well?

Jamie Sumner: Absolutely. I’m Jamie Sumner, and I write middle grade novels. Some are in verse, some are in prose, and I have a graphic novel adaptation of my first book coming out in about a year, which I’m really excited about. That’s been a lot like working on a script—hard and amazing.
Wish You Well is written in prose, but the premise is anything but traditional. Three kids meet at a hospital picnic. If you’ve been lucky enough not to spend much time in hospitals, you may not know about these picnics, but hospitals sometimes hold annual events for families and kids dealing with chronic illnesses, or for children who spent a long time in the NICU. Nurses and families come together, check in on one another, and celebrate how everyone is doing. The main character, Violet, is thirteen, and she absolutely does not want to go. She’s slowly going blind because of macular degeneration, and she doesn’t want to be reminded of it. She just wants to be a normal kid, so the picnic feels like this huge red flag highlighting her illness that she doesn’t want to talk about. So the day of the picnic, she’s in a bad mood. While she’s there, she witnesses a kid choking on a hot dog. Luckily, he’s surrounded by nurses who perform the Heimlich and save him. That’s how she meets Wyatt, who’s had a heart transplant, and Noor, whose mother is the nurse who rescued him.
Wyatt becomes the instigator of their friendship—or really, their scheme. Violet complains about how the wish foundation keeps trying to get her to apply for a wish, but she says that’s for babies. I don’t want to do that. Wyatt and Noor tell her they get those wish foundation things too.
Wyatt points out that they would each get three wishes, so he comes up with this grand idea: they pool their wishes and have one epic year filled with three huge adventures. The catch is that they have to pretend to be best friends, even though they just met. Violet and Noor aren’t exactly warm-and-fuzzy personalities, so Wyatt is the one who tries to bring everyone together. It’s a little like The Breakfast Club: three very different kids are stuck in this scenario and they team up and have to pull it off.

KR: I love the unlikely friendship, the attitude, and the grumpiness. Your voice pulled me in immediately. I kept thinking, I need more books like this. Do you have an unlikely friendship in your own life?

Jamie Sumner author photoJS: Actually, I had… no one has asked me that question yet, that’s interesting. And it comes full circle. So, one of my best friends now, who I never would have guessed we would become close friends, was actually my son’s nurse in the NICU. So, my son Charlie has cerebral palsy, and he is 14 now. And, he was in the NICU for about 10 to 12 weeks when he was first born, and he ended up coming home with a trach, he had oxygen, he later got a G-tube, many surgeries, lots of stuff going on when he was a baby. And it’s really important, if you know, you know, like, to request someone who you think is good to be their primary nurse, the nurse that is… if they’re on call, they’re gonna be asigned to your baby. So, I ended up requesting Mary and she just seemed very cool under pressure, she and Charlie, like, meshed. Even though he was, you know, 3 weeks, 4 weeks old. This means every day when I’m there, she’s there.

So, we became friends, and then her husband who is also a nurse who works at the Veteran Hospital and he and my husband and Mary… we all became friends. They would come over and Mary would babysit Charlie when I went back to work as a teacher. You can’t do better than the primary NICU nurse taking care of your kid when your go back to work. I threw her a baby shower when she had her first baby, so… it’s so funny how that happens, and it’s kind of like friendships born out of…necessity? Really more, situation or circumstance. Mary and I, we actually texted last night, so we’re still best friends.

KR: That is so great. I love it. You’ve talked briefly about this, can you tell us more about how the setting for Wish You Well is something personal for you?

JS: It’s very personal, but I also think it’s universal. If you’re the parent of a child who’s spent time in the hospital—or if you’re part of the sandwich generation and have a parent who’s frequently in the hospital—you’ll understand it. After Charlie came home from the NICU, he continued seeing lots of specialists. He had surgeries, seizures, tests, sleep studies, and more ambulance rides than I ever wanted to experience.
We live in Nashville, so Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital became this place we knew intimately. I know the smell. I know where the good snacks are. I even know when the cafeteria locks the cold-drink doors because they won’t sell them between these two hours. We spent so much time there, and they were so good to us. I really wanted to tell a story set in that world because it’s something you can’t imagine if you haven’t been in it. When you’ve been through it, you recognize all these little details and think, Oh, yeah. I know that. I wanted readers who have lived through it to feel seen, but I also wanted people who haven’t experienced it to understand that world better and develop more empathy for children—and really anyone—who has had to spend a lot of time in hospitals dealing with chronic illness.

KR: Yes. It’s so important to build empathy.
I have to tell you, I was completely hooked by this story. I cried while reading and could hardly keep going, but had to find out the ending. That seems to be a theme in your writing. I’ve read several of your books, and they all carry these really big emotional themes. What draws you to writing that way?

JS: You mentioned voice, and I think voice is the thing that comes to me first in a story. I start with the character’s attitude, their vibe, who they are. I don’t really plot everything out in advance. I spend a lot of time getting to know my characters, and then I figure out the major plot points. Sometimes I abandon those, too. I let the characters lead me. Because my books are middle grade and because of the situations I put my characters in, they’re certainly adventure stories, but the emotional journey is always the bigger journey for me. That’s the part that makes you care, that makes you tear up, and that makes you not want to put the book down. Those are also the books I love to read. Sometimes you want a book that’s mostly plot, and that’s great. But other times you want to be pulled in and actually feel something. Those are the kinds of books I tend to write because my characters feel very real to me. I hear them. I get to know them. And I’m a pretty emotional person, so that probably plays a part in it, too.

KR: I’ve thought a lot about voice while reading this book, especially with Violet. Then Noor has such a distinct personality and Wyatt has that lovable quality that brings everyone together. When you’re first developing a character, how do you find their voice?

JS: Usually it starts with a line of dialogue. I’ll hear something in my head, and it’s very clearly something that this character would say. That becomes the thread I follow. Voice can also come through music. Sometimes I make a playlist for a character. That song or playlist captures the character’s vibe, and if I ever lose the voice while I’m writing—especially if I’ve gotten too caught up in the plot—I can listen to the music and find my way back.
For Violet, the voice was very early-Alanis-Morissette. She’s angry, but she doesn’t always know why, so when people get too close to her, she takes it out on them. But underneath all of that, she’s kind and she really needs love. That’s where Violet came from.

KR: I love that.
What would you wish for?

JS: Oh, gosh. That’s such a great question. I can’t believe I’ve never asked myself that while writing this book. I’d combine two things, because apparently that’s what you’re allowed to do with a wish. I’ve never been able to go on a writing retreat because of Charlie’s situation. I don’t like to be away from him for more than a night or two. And I also have twins in seventh grade. But I’d love to go abroad—specifically to Italy—and do a writing retreat that also includes a cooking class. I love the idea of writing while also cooking, getting to use your hands, eating great food, and being immersed in the Italian countryside. Wouldn’t that be incredible?

KR: Absolutely. You’re immersing yourself in all the senses and emotions, which would probably create an amazing story, too.

JS: Exactly. And the wish would have to include knowing that Charlie was okay. Otherwise I’d just be worrying the whole time, and I couldn’t really let myself relax and write.

KR: Let’s do a lightning round.
Favorite writing snack?

JS: Trail mix—specifically the California kind with dried banana chips.

KR: What do you do right before you sit down to write?

JS: Go for a run. It clears my head, and that’s usually when I figure out what’s coming next in the chapter.

KR: Your book is divided into summer, fall, winter, and spring. Best thing about summer?

JS: The kids are out of school and we have no schedule. It’s incredible.

KR: Best thing about fall?

JS: Everything pumpkin. I know it’s a cliché, but I can’t help it, I love it. I love baking with pumpkin. And its… fresh starts.

KR: Best thing about winter?

JS: Is there anything? Okay, fun snow days. Where you get to wing it. Those are fun. I usually bake bread on snow days, because I’m at home with them, and I can check in on my rise, see how its going.

KR: Nice. And spring?

JS: When you first hear the birds again in the morning. Those early spring sounds make it a little easier to get out of bed.

KR: Favorite vacation spot?

JS: Colorado. I love it, I love the mountains.

KR: Best reading spot?

JS: My bed. Oh, no! What am I even saying? We built a screen in porch, and there is a couch that is my… I write on it, I live on it, I nap on it, it’s the best.

KR: Favorite holiday?

JS: Christmas has almost too much pressure to make it perfect. So I told my husband this past year I really liked the 4th of July, because it was chill, and it was outside, and it was grilling, and…Fireworks. So that may be my current new favorite.

KR: Hobby when not writing.

JS: Baking, yes, that’s my favorite.

KR: Alright, well, I love it! Thank you for joining us today. Before we go, can you tell us… you alluded to the graphic novel, but what is next for author Jamie Sumner?

JS: Next! Oh my goodness, it’s called Space Race, it’s coming out in the spring, and it’s a novel in verse.Author Jamie Sumner with books she wrote

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Author Interview: Jamie Sumner on her new release, Schooled

By on August 27, 2025   /   Author Interviews  
Author photo of Jamie Sumner

by Bethany Rogers

We’re excited to have Jamie Sumner on here today to talk about her new release: Schooled. The title intrigues me so much, I can’t wait to find out more.

Hi, Jamie, thank you so much for joining us here today. We’d like to learn more about you, and then we’ll talk about your book.

Did you love to read as a child? If so, can you tell us some favorite books?

I absolutely loved to read. My brother is twelve years older than me, so I was basically an only child with a very active imagination. On top of that, my mom was my elementary school librarian! Every book fair, she would let me pick as many books as I wanted and stack them next to her desk. It was heaven. I loved The Boxcar Children and The Baby-sitters Club series.

What an ideal job for the mom of a book lover to have! That would have been heaven.

With so many books at your disposal, I’m sure you learned how powerful writing could be. What was an early experience where you learned that written language had power?

When I was in fourth grade, my teacher assigned our first short story. I don’t remember the requirements, but I remember that mine was ten pages and everyone else’s was around two! I found it a few years ago, and it was pretty dark for a nine year old – about an elephant that escaped a zoo in India. I don’t think I’d ever seen an elephant in real life, and I had definitely never been to India. But the power of this anecdote comes from what my teacher wrote at the top of my story. She wrote, “You are a writer” – not, you will be a writer if you do x,y,z, but that I was one already. I’m pretty sure her words changed my life.Jamie dance recital photo

That’s an amazing compliment, and it shows how much impact teachers can have. It’s such wonderful, positive encouragement. I’m sure she’d be pleased to know how many books you’ve written.

Those elementary years can also be filled with many other emotions, including fear and embarrassment. What was your biggest fear when you were young? Did you get over it?

Honestly, I think my biggest fear was that people wouldn’t like me. It seems silly, but I felt like if I really showed my true self, people would think I was weird or “too much.” It’s easier now that I’m in my forties, but it’s also harder with social media. It is so easy to compare to someone else’s home life or career. Luckily, I have a core of good people around me, and I am pretty good at reminding myself of my values, when I start to feel angsty about it all.

Would you be willing to share an embarrassing grade school moment?Jamie Easter childhood photo

This is going to sound so small, but it felt SO BIG. One of my friends had a sleepover and almost every girl in the grade was invited. It was awesome. We roller skated and watched movies (that we rented from Blockbuster) and then we all slept in sleeping bags in her living room.

Well, the next morning, I woke up, and a few girls were laughing and whispering – you know that whisper you just feel is about you and not nice. Turns out, they said I snored and when I did my lip curled up, and because I had a short haircut, I looked like Elvis. For the rest of the school year, those few girls called me Elvis.

It felt so unfair that I got a mean nickname because of something I did in my sleep.

I can totally understand why it felt so big. It sounds very painful and sad. Unkind teasing like that really hurts. And for them to keep it up so long makes it even more mean. It’s good when you could put it behind you as you grew up. Luckily, your teacher’s encouragement spurred you to continue writing and you turned your talents into a wonderful career as an author.

Can you tell us your favorite or most challenging part of being a writer?

My absolute favorite writing is the first draft – it goes the fastest and everything feels brilliant and nothing feels so precious that you can’t cut it or change it later. I wake up in the middle of the night texting myself dialogue, and things that happen in my day sneak into the part of the story I’m working on. This is the part that feels like magic.

The hardest part for me is the big letter I get from my editor with the long list of big and small things that need fixing. It can be anything from major character or plot issues or small line-by-line fixes, and it feels so massive that if I let it sit for too long, it feels impossible. I have to jump in before the weight of it gets to me.

Edits can be tough and overwhelming to face. I’m glad you’ve found a way to get started on the revisions.

Have you had any careers besides writing?

Oh yes. This is my favorite thing to tells kids when I do author visits. You DO NOT HAVE TO KNOW what you want to be when you grow up! We are all always growing up! Your wants and skills will change. First, I worked for a publishing company in New York. Then I worked for a bakery. Then I went back to school and got my Masters in Education and taught high school English for over a decade. It was only after that when I became a full-time author.

It’s been fun getting to know about your journey as an author. Now we’d love to hear more about Schooled. Can you tell us about it?book cover Schooled

Schooled actually pulled a lot from my former career as a teacher. In the story eleven-year-old Lenny and his father have just uprooted their lives to move to a college campus where his dad will be a professor. Lenny and a bunch of other professors’ kids become part of an experimental middle school. The catch is, Lenny is in deep, deep grief over the loss of his mom and he’s not sure he’s up for this new life.

This novel is an exploration of what school could and should be and also what it looks like for different people to grieve and how we heal. Lenny makes some incredible friends, and it was pure joy for me to set a group of preteens loose at college.

Are any characters based on anyone you know?

There is an old professor in Schooled named VW and he is absolutely modeled after my favorite professor in college whom we affectionately called VB. VW loves talking literature and challenging norms and holding office hours in the divinity school cafeteria because “they serve the best food on campus.”

Do you have any message or advice for the teachers and parents who will be sharing your book with their students and families?

There is a part in this book where Lenny and his friends take a test called the Four Tendencies. It’s a real thing by Gretchen Rubin, and I would encourage any teacher to let their students take it. It tells you a great deal about how you approach life and educational tasks. I’d also tell any aspiring writers to have their characters take the test! It will show them what their character’s motivations are so they can have them make authentic decisions.

What do you hope readers will take away from your book?

I hope readers will remember that grief is not linear, and we all approach it in our own way at our own pace and that the best thing you can do is to talk it through with people you trust.

Can you tell us about some of your other books?

I have my first picture book coming out in the spring of 2026! A Fish Like Me takes place entirely under water as we follow one boy as he pretends to be all different sea creatures. It is only later that we discover he uses a wheelchair and is in swim therapy. It is a beautiful celebration of all the different ways that bodies can move.

What a wonderful way to explore swim therapy from a child’s point of view. I’ll look forward to that coming out. Are you working on any other books now?

I am finishing up page proofs on my third novel in verse Glory Be which will also be out in the spring of 2026. It follows Glory as she searched for her lost dog Roux all over the city of New Orleans. The entire thing takes place over five days and it is so fun and fast-paced and full of the vibrant culture of NOLA.

Good luck with finishing Glory Be. Novels in verse are so challenging to write, but so lovely to read. And New Orleans is a fun setting, so we’ll look forward to its release.

And thank you so much for agreeing to this interview, Jamie. I know our young readers, as well as teachers and librarians will enjoy learning more about you and your books. And I’m sure they’ll  be excited to get a copy of Schooled.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Eleven-year-old Lenny Syms is about to start college—sort of. As part of a brand-new experimental school, Lenny and four other students are starting sixth grade on a university campus, where they’ll be taught by the most brilliant professors and given every resource imaginable. This new school is pretty weird, though. Instead of hunkering down behind a desk to study math, science, and history, Lenny finds himself meditating, participating in discussions where you don’t even have to raise your hand, and spying on the campus population in the name of anthropology.
But Lenny just lost his mom, and his Latin professor dad is better with dead languages than actual human beings. Lenny doesn’t want to be part of some learning experiment. He just wants to be left alone. Yet if Lenny is going to make it as a middle schooler on a college campus, he’s going to need help. Is a group of misfit sixth graders and one particularly quirky professor enough to pull him out of his sadness and back into the world?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jamie Sumner is the author of Roll with It, Time to Roll, Rolling On, Tune It Out, One Kid’s Trash, The Summer of June, Maid for It, Deep Water, Please Pay Attention, and Schooled. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. She loves stories that celebrate the grit and beauty in all kids. She is also the mother of a son with cerebral palsy and has written extensively about parenting a child with special needs. She and her family live in Nashville, Tennessee. Visit her at Jamie-Sumner.com.

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Interview and giveaway with Jamie Sumner, author of Roll with It

By on October 4, 2019   /   Articles, Author Interviews, Giveaways, News  

This week, author Jamie Sumner stopped by MUF to talk about her brand-new middle-grade title from Simon & Schuster, ROLL WITH IT (giveaway below!).  Here’s what Jamie had to say about writing for middle-grade readers, why stories about being the new kid are so appealing, and what’s on her TBR (to be read) list.

Roll with It by Jamie Sumner

Mixed-Up Files: Tell us a little bit about ROLL WITH IT (& CONGRATS!!!), as well as your background as a writer.

Jamie Sumner: I woke up at 2:30 a.m. one late night/early morning with the idea for ROLL WITH IT rattling around in my head. My son has cerebral palsy and the notion of writing a story that he could relate to had been percolating for a while. But I knew I couldn’t tell Charlie’s story. I needed more distance from real life to let my imagination go where it would.

What woke me up at 2:30 a.m. was this vision of someone in a wheelchair trying to navigate my grandparent’s old trailer in Oklahoma. It would be impossible! It would be insane to even try! But maybe, just maybe, if you’re determined enough and young enough to brave it, it could be awesome. And so the idea of ROLL WITH IT was born.

The story follows Ellie, a 12-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, who moves with her mom into a trailer park in Oklahoma to help take caring of her grandpa who has dementia. It’s a tight fit, but there is so much love in that small space and that small town. She finds freedom in this most unexpected place and she makes friends and pursues her dream of becoming a famous chef. She comes into herself here.

As for my background as a writer, it’s all over the place. I’ve written essays, both personal and reported, for The New York Times and The Washington Post. And I’ve also written a faith-based parenting book, Unbound, which came out last year and I have another faith-based parenting book, this time for parents of children with special needs, called Eat, Sleep, Save the World, that comes out with Lifeway March of 2020! I am also the reviews editor at Literary Mama so not only do I get to write, but I get to read great stuff as well.

MUF: You’ve written personal essays about your son, Charlie. Had you always wanted to write or was being a mom to Charlie what sparked that interest? 

JS: I still remember the first story that caused someone to call me “a writer”. It was fourth grade and the story was seven pages longer than the requirement and it followed the perilous journey of an elephant in India trying to escape from the zoo. My teacher loved it and I felt so important when the words I wrote made someone else feel things. I’ve written off  and on ever since, but began to pursue it full time after Charlie and my twins got a little older. And writing about Charlie is how I first jumped back in. There were so many things I wanted to tell other parents who might be in the same boat as me. And then later, there were so many things I wanted to share with kids who are like Charlie!

Jamie Sumner, author, Roll With It

MUF: What made you turn to fiction, and then specifically, middle grade fiction? What is it about MG readers that made you want to write for them?

JS: I love middle schoolers! I think this is the hardest age for a reason. When you’re in it, you have no idea what’s going on with yourself or anybody else. You’re confused and maybe a little scared. But all that makes you curious. And curious readers are the best kind! Kids this age are looking for answers and for stories that reflect what they are experiencing. They read with an appetite for comfort or understanding or simply distraction and when they find it they are loyal readers for life. I still remember reading Bridge to Terabithia as an 11-year-old and wondering how anyone could understand me so completely without having met me.

As for why I decided to write fiction—it was just too much fun to let the characters lead me wherever they wanted to go. I couldn’t imagine not telling Ellie’s story of friendship with Bert and Coralee and the wonderful things they get into. They are as real to me as my own family now.

MUF: I was interested in seeing that you’d made your main character, Ellie, “the new girl.” That’s a popular theme in MG — what is it about being the new kid that you think is such an appealing topic for readers? 

JS: Being the new kid is like stepping up to a precipice and peering waaaaay down and then waaaaay up and wondering where to go from here. It makes you stop and think about the kind of person you want to be. You get to reinvent yourself, or more to the point, dig deeper to find the person you know you are. The “new kid” is just a metaphor for how we all feel when we encounter something for the first time – new house, new friends, new family dynamic – it’s a chance to see yourself in a different light. If a story is about character development, what better way to do that than having them starting fresh?

MUF: What’s next for you?

JS: So many things! I’m excited to get rolling (pun intended) on school visits for ROLL WITH IT. And as I mentioned earlier, EAT, SLEEP, SAVE THE WORLD comes out in March so I’ll be traveling quite a bit and speaking about that.

But also…I have two more middle grade books coming out with Atheneum/Simon & Schuster! Next up for fall of 2020 is THE SURVIVAL PLAYLIST, the story of 12-year-old Lou Montgomery, a talented singer with a flighty, fame-hungry mother and an undiagnosed sensory processing disorder that makes performing nearly unbearable. I just saw the cover for that one and I was blown away by how wonderful it is.

MUF: Finally, what is on your bedside table/massive book pile by your bed now?

JS: Oh, this is  my favorite question. Ready?
Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry
Sweep by Jonathan Auxier
The Lost Husband by Katherine Center
Beverly, Right Here by Kate DiCamillo (so excited for this one!)
After the Flood by Kassandra Montag
Akin by Emma Donoghue
The Distance Between Me and the Cherry Tree by Paola Peretti
The Green Children of Woolpit by J. Anderson Coats

Find out more about Jamie and subscribe to her newsletter here.  

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