J.A. Wright is the award-winning author of two novels,
Eat & Get Gas and How To Grow An Addict.

A smiling woman with long brown hair, wearing a black outfit, a gray scarf, and a beige turtleneck, sitting on a couch against a plain beige wall.

J.A. Wright (Jodi Wright), ONZM, is an author and festival director. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she moved to Christchurch in 1990 and spent more than three decades shaping the city's arts scene, founding or co-founding events including the World Buskers Festival, WORD Christchurch, and the New Zealand International Jazz & Blues Festival.

Her debut novel, How to Grow an Addict (2015), drew on her own path through addiction and recovery. Her second novel, Eat and Get Gas (2023), a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, won the 2024 Publisher's Weekly Booklife Prize for Fiction and the Story Circle Sarton Award, and has been optioned for film and TV.

In 2024, Wright was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to Christchurch's literary and performing arts.

Book cover of 'Eat and Get Gas' by J. A. Wright showing a red sketch of a diner, vintage car, gas pump, coffee cup, and salt shaker on a table surface, with the title text in bold black at the top.

Eat and Get Gas : A Novel

Winner of the 2024 Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize Contest (fiction)

Winner of Story Circle’s Sarton Award 2024

Emmy-nominated Producer Leanne Moore (GLOW and The Lincoln Lawyer for Netflix, ROAR for Apple TV+) has optioned the film and TV rights to Eat and Get Gas.

Thirteen-year-old Evangeline (Evan) Hanson is always the last in her family to know what's going on; at least, that's how it feels.

When her brother gets drafted to Vietnam, her anti-war mother takes him to Canada, leaving Evan and her younger, special needs brother with their army officer father—who, unwilling to shoulder the burden of caring for his kids, takes them to their grandmother's roadside cafe and home.

At Eat and Get Gas, Evan encounters a cast of characters she both likes and fears and eventually learns a big family secret that changes how she feels about everyone and everything.

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What readers are saying about Eat and Get Gas

  • "J.A. Wright's uncanny ability to place the reader at the very center of 13-year-old Evan’s head captured me, from page 1."

    - Jenni Ogden, award-winning author of A Drop in the Ocean, and Call My Name.

  • "Storytelling at its best, 'Eat and Get Gas' grabs the reader from page one and doesn’t let go."

    - Laurie Buchanan, author of the Sean McPherson novels

  • "Eat and Get Gas ticks all of the boxes...a truly satisfying read."

    - Deborah K. Shepherd, author of So Happy Together

  • "A great cast of characters, a compelling story, and convincingly told."

    - Joe Bennett, New Zealand columnist and travel writer

  • "Complex and memorable characters are at the heart of this intriguing narrative...one exciting novel!"

    - Marianne Lile, author of Stepmother - A Memoir

  • "Evan’s story is poignant and raw and honest."

    - Cindy Eastman, author of Flip-Flops after 50

Book cover titled "How to Grow an Addict" by J. A. Wright, featuring a potted plant growing in soil with roots, some pills, blister packs, and a syringe among the roots, and a flower on the plant.

How To Grow An Addict : A Novel

Randall Grange has been tricked into admitting herself into a treatment center and she doesn't know why. She's not a party hound like the others in her therapy group but then again - she knows she can't live without pills or booze.

Raised by an abusive father, a detached mother, and a loving aunt and uncle, Randall both loves and hates her life. She's awkward and a misfit. Her parents introduced her to alcohol and tranquilizers at a young age, ensuring that her teenage years would be full of bad choices, and by the time she's twenty-three, she's a full-blown drug addict, well acquainted with the miraculous power chemicals have to cure just about any problem she could possibly have and she’s in more trouble than she’s ever known was possible.

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