Added on May 9, 2022 Sara Swanson

Manchester native authors Amazon bestseller, Until September

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Until September. Photo courtesy of Harker Jones

Photo courtesy of Harker Jones

Manchester native, and the Manchester Mirror’s new copy editor, Harker Jones has a book out! Until September is a coming-of-age love story about two boys meeting one summer between high school and college in 1966.

Jones stated, “It seemed too obvious for homophobia to be the central issue, even for the time period, so while that is an element, themes of jealousy and loss are what drive the story.” While it focuses almost entirely on teenagers, the story isn’t necessarily Y/A. He stated, “Teens will understand the prose and the story, but it is generally more for adults who will have a wider worldview and deeper understanding of regret.

“Until September is not a romance, it’s a love story,” the Los Angeles resident explained. “There is no meet-cute, there’s no shirtless stud on the cover, it’s not a fantasy like most romance novels are. It’s more grounded and more realistic and certainly more melancholy. That is not to say it’s not a page-turner. It’s just more Call Me By Your Name and Atonement than Harlequin.”

While Manchester is Jones’s hometown, he grew up outside of the Village at Pleasant Lake. At the time, he wanted to be living in a city, but in retrospect he appreciates the upbringing he had. He stated, “I love having grown up in the country, outside a town so small as Manchester. Then spending my early twenties in Ann Arbor prepared me for the move to a city like Los Angeles.”

Part of the bio he uses when submitting scripts (he’s a screenwriter, too) is: “I grew up on a dirt road in Michigan outside a small town. Smaller than you’re thinking. No, smaller than that, too. It’s so small that, to this day, it does not have a streetlight. Not even a flashing four-way.” It helps others understand where he’s coming from when they meet. He told the Mirror, “I tell people all the time how growing up where I did gives me a good perspective on the world. Not many people have lived at a lake, in a small town, in a college town, and in a large city. I’ve seen lots of facets of the world that most don’t. And I think it makes me well-balanced coming from such a solid community.”

He credits some of his love of writing on his shyness growing up. He describes himself as “painfully, painfully shy” as a child (although notes that that sure has changed!). Because of that, he read a lot, which he believes steered him to a love of words and stories and storytelling. Though he acknowledges that maybe he just loved stories so he read a lot! “Being shy also led to my being an observer,” he explained. “I could view people and their actions and read their body language and assess motivations without anyone knowing. Not in a creepy, stalkery way, just like two kids on the playground or in class. I think it gave me a head start on understanding the complexity of human emotions that we all get a crash course in eventually.”

He started writing when he was 13. He still has boxes and boxes of poems and plays and half-started novels and journals stored at his parents’ house as well as probably an equivalent amount stored on his computer!

Jones still has plenty of ties to Manchester. For starters, his parents still live at the lake so when he comes back to visit, he stays there. “I’m very fortunate that when I go back, I can actually return to the home I grew up in,” he stated. “I have friends in the area, too, and I see as many as I can when I visit. We stay in touch through social media but it’s fun to actually get together.” He usually meets Manchester friends at the Hungry Wolf and college friends in Ann Arbor. “I always make a point of taking the back roads into town and popping into Frank’s and stopping at Worth Repeating. I wish that store had been there when I was growing up!” he said.

The Mirror is fortunate to have Jones now volunteering as a copy editor and he is happy to have it as another connection to Manchester. He stated, “It gives me a breath of hometown life!”

Jones started working on Until September when he was going through a serious bout of unrequited love right after graduating from Eastern Michigan University. He explained, “I took all those feelings and funneled them into this story. I’m sure the guy I was crushing on is a lovely person but I think this is a better outcome!” He doesn’t remember how long it took to write the first draft, which he actually composed by hand at work when he was a receptionist for a small company in Ann Arbor. He wrote it up in email form, sending it to himself in pieces, and eventually got it into a Word document.

Jones sent his manuscript out to managers and agents but it’s a slow process that could take years and the odds are most would say no, so after a few polite rejections, he decided to self-publish. “I worked on it off and on through the years and I think I chose to pull the trigger on publishing it at the right time,” he stated. “It was polished enough and I was mature enough and just ready. So intermittently I worked on it for about 20 years while also juggling other projects.”

He didn’t know if he’d sell two or two million copies, but he just wanted it to reach its audience, no matter the size. He said, “I would love to have a big publishing house behind it with that kind of budget to produce, stock, and promote. Instead, I do all that myself. It takes a lot of work. But I’ve sold over a thousand copies, it hit #1 on Amazon, and I’ve even gotten fan letters!”

One of the biggest compliments he’s received so far is that a fair number of people have compared Until September to F. Scott Fitzgerald. “I can’t believe anyone would ever say that. It just blows my face off, because he is a huge influence, he and his stories of the troubled elite,” he stated.

Jones does not compare himself to Fitzgerald, or compare his writing to Fitzgerald’s, but he does acknowledge there are similarities. Until September is also about the troubled elite, though it is set in 1966, forty years removed from Fitzgerald’s tales of the Jazz Age.

Although the book is set in the ’60s, it didn’t start that way. Initially Jones set it in contemporary times but pretty quickly the setting shifted. He explained, “I think it changed because I didn’t want it moored to any particular time or place. I wanted it to have a dreamy, nostalgic tone. But an editor told me it needed at least a few references to a particular time just to ground it, and I think he was right. So I chose 1966 because it felt like a year where things had already started to get crazy in the country, but there was still an idealism. That was my take, anyway, having not been there.”

Additionally, the primary setting of an island allows the characters to be insulated from what is going on in the real world, so even with the country caught up in political and social upheaval, they are caught up in their own emotional upheaval.

Jones is working on three children’s books right now. “The first, The Bird Who Was Afraid to Fly, is illustrated by a very talented artist named Sara Angus from the Dexter area,” he explained, “and I’m looking for a publisher before publishing it myself, if it comes to that. The other two are written and I’m editing and rewriting them before looking for an artist, but I’m hopeful that having three in my arsenal will interest a manager or publisher!”

In addition to the children’s books, he has eight completed feature screenplays, four of which he describes as solid. “The others have potential, they just need some work,” he stated. He’s currently pitching the “good ones” to managers and execs, just waiting to meet the right person who gets them and him.

Until September is Jones’s second novel. The first he wrote when he was 17 and is set in Manchester. He’s since adapted it into a screenplay called Never Have I Ever, which is one of the scripts that gets the most positive feedback. It’s a teen slasher-whodunit and he would love for it to be shot in Manchester!

Jones is working on adapting Until September into a limited series. He has five episodes written and intends for there to be seven in total. On top of that, he’s got a couple of short films out on the festival circuit. They’ve been accepted into almost 60 film fests and have won several awards. “The producers and directors did a fantastic job with them,” he stated.

Jones has now been in LA for more than 20 years, longer than he lived in Manchester and almost as much time as he lived in Michigan altogether. He’s a huge cat lover. He loves horror movies. (He loves movies in general, but horror movies in particular!) He was managing editor of Out magazine for seven years. He’s a member of the LA Drama Critics Circle, so he sees a lot of theater, both for review and for consideration for their annual awards show. And he’s in Mensa! He stated, “How weird is that? I’m me and I still think it’s weird! I joined immediately after getting the acceptance letter because part of me was afraid they would realize there was a mistake!”

For almost the whole time he’s been in LA, Jones has volunteered at an organization called Project Angel Food, which makes and deliver meals to people housebound with illness. It was founded by the spiritualist and best-selling author Marianne Williamson in 1989 to help serve AIDS victims and has since expanded to include people with many illnesses.

He has been with his partner, Anthony, a segment producer at a news station in LA, for 18 years in September. Together they have a demon cat named Holly. Jones stated, ”Holly and I are deeply attached. People joke that I love her more than I love Anthony. I just give a small smile in response!”

Until September is available on Amazon for $1.99 in e-book form and $10.99 as a physical book. It’s also available at Barnes & Noble (barnesandnoble.com), Google Play, and Apple Books in electronic form. And it’s available at the Manchester District Library. Jones has promised to stop in and sign it next time he’s in town!

Jones hopes when people read Until September, they will remember their own first love, and that it takes them back to a feeling of heightened emotion and their dreams for their future, whether those dreams panned out or not. “I hope it stays with them,” he said. “There’s no feeling like being haunted by a good story.”