And then after approximately 70 billion more revisions, both with her and an editor. And I wanted to tell you that I'm a literary agent and I would love to see you some of your manuscripts, if you're interested in it.'Īnd so that's how I took the fanfiction of mine that I thought was the most reworkable and I sent it to her and then I signed with her. She was like, 'I saw that you wrote something about maybe pulling some of your fics and reworking them. And while I was in that kind of mood, my agent started reading my fanfiction on AO3 and then she reached out with a DM.

And then what happened is that I started slowly thinking about trying to write something original, just to challenge myself and to do something different. I made a lot of friends and I was just having a lot of fun. It was just, it was this amazing community. I was really, really into writing fanfiction, first for the Star Trek fandom and then for the Star Wars fandom. In my conversation with Hazelwood, which you can read below, I spoke with her about how both her background in fanfic and in STEM informed the writing of The Love Hypothesis, the one steamy scene in particular that didn't make the final cut, and what she can tease about her next book.ĬOLLIDER: Congratulations on the book being out! I think some people know the backstory of how it came to be, but for those who don't, what's the genesis behind The Love Hypothesis?ĪLI HAZELWOOD: I think it was a lot of just luck and chances and opportunities. When Hazelwood decided to make the leap from writing fanfiction to becoming a published author, readers flocked in droves, and even though The Love Hypothesis is a completely original work, there are still some nods to its beginnings - like the cover, for example. I have vague memories of trying not to choke.'īut it's no surprise, taking into account that the book itself has been absolutely blowing up a certain section of TikTok lately - as well as considering The Love Hypothesis's origin story. Understandably, Hazelwood's recollection of the moment she found out about it from her editor at Berkley Publishing is a little hazy: 'I think I had grilled cheese in my mouth. The day before I was set to chat with Ali Hazelwood, the news broke that her debut novel The Love Hypothesis had officially become a New York Times bestseller, charting at #9 in print and at #11 on the combined print and ebook lists.

Ali hazelwood author