Jenny Han is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series, now Netflix movies. She is also the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling The Summer I Turned Pretty series, now streaming on Amazon Prime, as well as Shug, and Clara Lee and the Apple Pie Dream. She is the coauthor of the Burn for Burn trilogy, with Siobhan Vivian. Her books have been published in more than thirty languages. A former librarian, Jenny earned her MFA in creative writing at the New School. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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"I've been a fan for years. As I was writing the books, I was listening to her music," Han said, adding that Swift's music brought her the emotion she needed to tap into during her writing.

"I think that she understands young womanhood in a way and also love stories. That means a lot to me," Han said.

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Han also discussed Asian representation, saying she was told by publishers years ago that people wouldn't read stories about Asian Americans and about Asian American families.

"I think it didn't even really hurt my feelings because it was just kind of so matter of fact," she said. 

Belly, who is an Asian American character in the show, is White in the original novel.

"I had tried to sell a book with an Asian main character before this one, and people weren't really interested in it," Han said. "The thing I would hear is, 'We already have a book with them.'"

After garnering trust from her audience, Han said, she was able to have more freedom with the background of her characters. But she knew from the beginning that she wanted to do more for Asian representation.

"Even my first book, it was important for me to have my picture on the back," Han said. "It wasn't really done at the time, and I thought, 'I want other young Asian women to see that and think it's possible.'"

It was really exciting. When I was approaching the adaptation, I wanted to really reflect the moment that we're living in. And I think the diversity of characters is a piece of that, so it felt like a really great opportunity to showcase different kinds of talent. We get to have like an Asian American family on the show. And then, we also have a new character Cleveland, who is Filipino. So it's really exciting I think. And I think it feels really natural to the show, to the characters and the story.

In the book series, Belly was depicted as a white woman via the original cover but in the new show, she is a mixed race teen with a Korean mother and white father. Following a history of more traditionally white leads than we can count on a hundred fingers, Jenny Han was excited to “showcase different kinds of talent” first and foremost and reflect the diverse world we live in, which hasn’t often been depicted in an honest way by Hollywood in the past.