Like many Nashville-origin stories, Jeff Zentner moved to town to pursue music. Creativity and writing were always passions, but reality called Jeff away from life as a professional musician and led him back to a classroom. He went on to attend Vanderbilt where he earned a law degree.
“I also started volunteering at Tennessee Teen Rock Camp and Southern Girls Rock Camp teaching kids how to play guitar,” Jeff added. “Out of that experience, I really came to love the way that young adults connect with the art that’s meaningful to them. The way they really cling to it, make it part of their identity, and weave itself into their being.”
With this newfound inspiration, Jeff began pursuing ways to create art for young adults outside of the music industry. He soon discovered the young-adult book category and set off on a new adventure writing novels.
“I came up with an idea for a young adult novel called The Serpent King,” Jeff shares. “I was working for the Tennessee attorney general at the time, and I would commute by bus from West Meade to downtown Nashville. I was riding the bus for almost an hour every day each way, and I wrote almost all of The Serpent King on my iPhone, with my right thumb, on the bus.”
Despite its unconventional penning, The Serpent King would go on to rack up a list of impressive accolades. Among them: an American Library Association William C. Morris Award, a New York Times Notable Children’s Book, and a spot on numerous “Best Of” lists around the country.
Since then, Jeff has published three other young adult books—Goodbye Days, Rayne and Delilah’s Midnight Matinee, and In The Wild Light. Recently he released his debut novel for the adult market, Colton Gentry’s Third Act, a tale about a canceled country music star who returns to his hometown where he’s reconnected with an old flame. Before its release, the book was recommended on the Today Show as a best new romance.
With so much success as a novelist, it may be shocking to learn Jeff has no formal training as a writer.
“I just read a lot of books growing up as a kid … just tons and tons of books,” he says. “That, counterintuitively, scared me off of writing. I grew up in a pre-Internet era. I put books on such a pedestal, that I imagined authors being these otherworldly beings who were very different from me.”
For this reason, Jeff first funneled his creativity into music. It wasn’t until a friend found success as an author that his eyes were opened to the option of writing novels of his own. Jeff says that failing at music, in a way, made him not afraid to try something new.
“Nobody seems to care very much that I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve in music,” he says. “I kind of realized that nobody’s keeping track of my failures, and I didn’t really have anything to fear by trying to write a book. I just did it.”
As a big fan of the Bellevue Library (which even makes an appearance in one of his books), Jeff knew the Bellevue area was where he wanted to be. After his books were published and began taking off, he and his wife were able to purchase a home in the area that, come to find out, was once owned by Vince Gill.
“The Bellevue Library is one of my favorite bookish places in the world,” he says. “I love to just sit there and write or read. I’m a big fan of that.”
In addition to the library, Jeff loves the accessibility Bellevue affords him to some of his favorite places, including being within walking distance to “some of the best pizza I’ve ever had anywhere in the world” at Desano and his favorite barbeque in the city at Honeyfire. He enjoys being within driving distance of McKay’s Bookstore, Harpeth River State Park, Percy Warner Park, and Bowie Nature Park.
“I think Bellevue is the most underrated neighborhood in Nashville,” Jeff adds. “To me, it’s paradise. I love Bellevue so much.”
Despite his debut adult novel just hitting shelves at the end of April, Jeff already has many more projects in the works. Keep up with all of his news and announcements and learn more about works already published at jeffzentnerbooks.com and on Instagram, @JeffZentner.
"I wrote almost all of The Serpent King on my iPhone ... on the bus.”
“To me, it’s paradise. I love Bellevue so much.”