Jessica Hatch ~ Book Award Judge

Author Jessica Hatch is judging the Page Turner Book Award with the hope of finding published novels that wraps her up in the story.

Author Jessica Hatch is judging the Page Turner Book Award with the hope of finding published novels that wraps her up in the story.

Jessica has a passion for writing laugh-out-loud fiction with a strong-beating heart. Her first novel, My Big Fake Wedding (Bookouture/Hachette Book Group), debuted at #1 on Amazon’s “Humorous American Literature” charts in August 2022.

Her second novel, How to Keep a Husband for Ten Days, is forthcoming in February 2023. Jessica loves to develop quirky, high-concept scenarios and then drop her characters into them, escape room–style, to see what happens.

Her work spotlights characters and locales the reader can fall in love with, and aims to explore real-world issues that women and nonbinary people face. Jessica has worked in book publishing since 2013.

She has had bylines published in Writer’s Digest, The Millions, and Shirley Magazine, among others, and she is a proud alumna of the Mors Tua Vita Mea workshop in Sezze Romano, Italy. Before being acquired by Bookouture, her debut novel won a pitch slam at the Brooklyn Book Festival in 2018 and was workshopped by acclaimed author Rumaan Alam at Aspen Summer Words in 2019.

Regardless of genre, strong writing has that "certain something" that wraps you up, makes you forget you're reading text on a page, and doesn't let you go. I'll be looking to be ensorcelled by Page Turner's savvy submitters' prose!

Jessica was born outside of Richmond, Virginia, and now lives in Jacksonville, Florida, with her bartender husband, Paul, and their three cats. When she is not writing, you can find her jogging on the Riverwalk or planning her next international trip.

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