Emily Henry was writing fan-fiction before she even knew what it was — but not the romance kind. The writer, 34, grew up reading K.A. Applegate's Animorphs series and while she waited for the next book to drop, she'd fill in the gaps on her own. "I wasn't on the internet," she laughs. "At that time, I didn't even know that there was a name for that." And despite reading voraciously pretty much from day one, the Cincinnati native didn't immediately know she wanted to be an author either — it took a fourth grade autobiography project to show her the light. For more on Emily Henry, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here. “It was the first time that it occurred to me that someone is actually writing these books,” she says. “As soon as that was put into my head, that was pretty much it for me. It’s my job, but it’s also my passion. It’s also my hobby. It’s arguably my only real interest.” Henry, who published three young-adult books before transitioning to adult romance, calls writing her "drug of choice," a borderline-obsession she thinks differentiates writers from people who don't pursue careers in the arts. "[It's] that free-fall feeling of when you just are brainstorming faster than your hand can write ... and then you spend the rest of your life chasing that feeling," she explains. "It is the thing that makes you feel the most alive, and when you can't experience it, it's so much more crushing than just, 'I'm burnt out about my job.' It's like, 'This is the thing that I do.'" But the thing she does now — writing the addictive contemporary romance books that have made her a household name — wasn't even really on her radar when she first dipped a toe into the genre. “I had not really read much romance when I sat down to write Beach Read,” author Emily Henry says of the 2020 novel about a pair of authors that launched her onto bestseller lists. "I set out to write a book I wanted to read. That was the whole point of it, and it quickly just became the book that I needed to write." The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now! Even though she grew up reading classics like Jane Austen that "had romances in them," Henry says she didn't really start reading the genre in earnest until adulthood, even though she grew up watching romantic comedies on the big screen. Perhaps that's why her books are so cinematic — their touchstones were films first. "It was weird that it didn’t occur to me sooner when I loved romantic comedy films," she laughs, citing You've Got Mail and The Holiday as favorites. "It should have been obvious that I would be the perfect person to pick up a romance novel. But I just didn't make that assumption for some reason. I think it was growing up in the '90s, when people were so judgmental and condescending about the genre." But once she discovered authors like Jasmine Guillory, Sally Thorne and Helen Hoang, Henry realized she may have had a hit on her hands. "I read their books and I loved them. And then I emailed my agent and was like, 'Hey, I think I wrote something in this genre a couple of years ago," Henry explains. "I started reading romance voraciously at that point, not just because I wanted to publish in this genre, but because I had stumbled on a genre that I really loved." Now, Great Big Beautiful Life — her latest about two writers competing to write a former tabloid darling's memoir — is on the horizon and several of her other books are in various stages of development for screens big and small. Henry is living the life she always dreamed of — ever since she knew it was a thing. And even if she doesn't know for sure that she'd like her own books if they didn't have her name on them, she's going to keep on writing them for herself and for her readers. Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer , from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Great Big Beautiful Life comes out April 22 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.