When author Carley Fortune set out to draft her debut novel Every Summer After, she held just one core goal: to create a piece of work that felt meaningful for herself, first and foremost.
Fed up with the constant strain of unforgiving corporate pressures, Fortune—who was serving as executive editor of Refinery29 Canada at the time—stepped back and returned to the lake where she had spent her childhood. Every bit of the success that followed came as a complete surprise: five best-selling books published over five consecutive years, two original projects currently in active development at Netflix, a television adaptation that claimed a spot on Amazon Prime Video’s global top 10 most-watched charts, and the widespread cultural frenzy surrounding her warm romantic stories set against the idyllic, tucked-away corners of Canada.
Every Summer After, a coming-of-age romance set in Barry’s Bay—the small Ontario community where Fortune lived through her adolescence—launched in 2022 and has already sold more than one million copies worldwide. Retitled Every Year After, the small-screen adaptation of Fortune’s debut novel premiered on Prime Video just two weeks ago.
Fast Company recently sat down for an interview with Fortune to discuss the new series, her other upcoming projects, how her years of experience in journalism shaped her approach to fiction writing, and the ongoing modern renaissance of romance book-to-screen adaptations.
