Oxford High School junior Elizabeth Marshall scored an interview with best-selling author Colleen Hoover during her business management class, as part of her job shadow project recently.

Hoover is the author of eleven novels and five novellas. Her novels typically fall into the young adult/contemporary romance categories. Hoover’s third novel, Hopeless, was self-published in 2013 and hit the #1 New York Times best-selling list four months after its publication.

While most students spend job shadow day on-site at a workplace to learn about their career of interest, this was particularly tricky for Marshall, who dreams of becoming an author. Since authors tend to write from home, Marshall had to get creative with the project.

Instead, Marshall sent an email Oct. 20 to Hoover, who is one of her favorite authors, to request an interview.

Much to Marshall’s surpise– Hoover responded to her list of 20 questions several days later.

“It was really cool. I felt very appreciative that she would take time out of her day to let me interview her. Since I’m just a high school student, she shouldn’t have any reason to let me interview her – but she did, which was really cool,” said Marshall.

In her emailed response to Marshall, Hoover wrote that she knew from a very young age that she wanted to become an author. In fact, she wrote that as early as four years old she knew that she wanted to write a book one day.

According to Marshall, this was just one of many interesting facts she learned about her favorite author through the interview.

“I learned how she got started going into the business and what she had degree-wise. She actually got a degree in social work in college, which is the other degree that I’m looking into getting, so I thought that was really interesting,” said Marshall.

Marshall also learned from Hoover about the writing, editing and publishing processes which carry her books from imagination into reality.

Marshall said the interview with Hoover has inspired her to keep working towards her dream of publishing a book.

“Writing is something I’m really passionate about… I’ve loved writing for a really long time. I’ve been writing short stories and poems since I was in elementary school,” said Marshall.

Like Hoover, Marshall said she is interested in writing contemporary romance novels.

In her effort to improve her writing, Marshall said she is also working to start a writing club at OHS to provide herself and other writers with a support system for their creative endeavors.

“We don’t have a lot of creative writing classes in high school and there are a lot of people at the high school that love creative writing, so I want to start a club, just so people can form a support system. As writers, we can help each other and edit and learn how to be better writers. It’s still in the works,” Marshall said.

“We’re just looking to get it approved from Principal Dunckley right now and once he approves it, we’ll get it running. It’s looking like we’ll be getting it started hopefully soon.”