When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
I’ve always been a writer. I think it chooses you. I wrote stories and poems when I was a kid - I have a bound book that I wrote when I was ten, “The Samaritan, Part II” about a spaceman whose ship is destroyed during landing, and he’s stuck on this lonely planet all by himself. It’s hysterically bad, but there is a distinct voice to the piece, one I “hear” even now. No idea why it was part two - I don’t recall ever writing part one. I was a poet and short fiction writer through college, and that’s when my professor told me I wouldn’t ever be good enough to actually publish, and I went into politics instead, and stopped all my creative writing. But story always lived at the edges of my mind, and I read everything I could get my hands on - Tami Hoag, Patricia Cornwell, Catherine Coulter, Lisa Gardner, J.D. Robb, Erica Spindler, Alex Kava, James Patterson, Diana Gabaldon. Ten years after that fateful indictment, I found John Sandford and suddenly, the world I’d been mentally lounging in opened before me, a massive fissure, and my muse crawled back out and demanded to be put to work immediately.
What inspires your muse?
First and foremost, reading other fabulous writers. I can be reading something completely unrelated to crime fiction and the words, the meter, the concept will strike me and one of my own plot or character issues will suddenly come clear. But music plays a large role too, as do nightmares I have. I try to avoid them, but sometimes, a horrifying act leaks into my subconscious and manifests itself in a bad dream, and I wake with a story on my mind. I do try to treat my Muse delicately, nurturing her (plying?) with a multi-fold approach of intellectual nourishment, travel, adequate sleep and dedicated playtimes, and of course, a nice bottle of red wine rarely goes amiss.
Who is J.T. Ellison’s Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson
Taylor is an offshoot of my own hero complex. She is uncompromising in her moral code, never hesitates if there is a person in trouble, and works hard to keep the people around her, strangers and friends alike, safe. I admire her tenacity and her ability to see the world in black and white. There’s good, and there’s evil. She knows which side of the fence she’s on. She’s a female Lucas Davenport, half cop, half rock star. Personally, I see her as Athena, the warrior goddess of Nashville.
More Titles from J.T. Ellison
Taylor Jackson novels: 2007 All the Pretty Girls 2008 14
2009 Judas Kiss
2010 The Cold Room 2010 The Immortals 2011 So Close the Hand of Death 2011 Where All the Dead Lie
Sam Owens novels
2012 A Deeper Darkness (April) 2012 Edge of Black (November)
What They're Saying about J.T. Ellison
"Shocking suspense, compelling characters and fascinating forensic details. When it comes to fast-paced thrillers, J.T. Ellison always has her game on." ~Lisa Gardner, #1 NYT bestselling author of CATCH ME
"A DEEPER DARKNESS has everything I love in a thriller: stunning twists and shocks, fascinating forensics, and heroines I deeply cared about. JT Ellison is one of the best writers in the game."~Tess Gerritsen, NYT bestselling author of THE SILENT GIRL
"Ellison is a genius and should be mandatory reading for any thriller aficionado".~Romantic Times
ALEX KAVA – Cold Metal Night
(FBI Profiler Maggie O’Dell)
A homeless man is found dead in a bloody snowdrift outside a downtown Omaha office building. Maggie O'Dell believes he's just one victim of a killer who crisscrosses the country. She knows she has less than twenty-four hours to catch him in Omaha before he moves on to another city and another victim.
Alex Kava grew up in the country outside Silver Creek, Nebraska. She earned a bachelor’s degree in art and English from College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Nebraska. She has done a variety of jobs, from working as a hospital tech, cleaning and sterilizing utensils from surgery, pathology and the morgue, to running her own graphic design firm, designing national food labels and directing television and radio commercials.
In 1996 she quit her job as a public relations director to dedicate herself to writing a novel and getting published. To pay the bills, she refinanced her home, maxed out her credit cards and even took on a newspaper delivery route.