What is your favorite indulgence, treat or reward?
People who know me know I’m not much of a girly girl. But without a doubt, the reward I enjoy the most are facials. It is a wonderful place to meditate on story. If I could, I’d do it every day. Instead, I save them to celebrate milestones - books finished, on sale, contracts signed, etc. Going to the symphony is another, I adore classical music. The great masters most of all - Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Beethoven, Liszt, Bach, Berlioz. Mahler is growing on me.
Do you watch TV and if so, what do you watch?
I do - I love shows that relate to my work. Criminal Minds, The Mentalist, Prime Suspect, Justified, Dexter, Castle, Mad Men and Californication all rank high on my list. I also love Weeds, Game of Thrones, the new show Once Upon a Time, and (cough) Gossip Girl. My editor got me hooked back in season one and now it’s just my dirty little indulgence. Perfect for folding laundry.
Is there something you can share that readers might not already know about you?
I learned to golf and to ski the same year, when I was five. I did both voraciously until we moved from Colorado to Virginia, where I was the only girl on my high school’s all male golf team. I was pretty good, actually, my father offered to let me skip my first year of college if I wanted to try out for the LPGA Q School. I sadly chose to go to college instead - what a dummy I was. I could have played golf for a living! I also threw shot put and discus, and had scholarship opportunities in both. But that kind of pressure wasn’t for me. So I played on my college golf team, and focused on school instead. I do enjoy an afternoon out on the links, though. That’s another indulgence reward.
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.
Today, Alex is a New York Times bestselling author of psychological suspense novels. Her Maggie O’Dell series, comprised of A Perfect Evil, Split Second, The Soul Catcher, At the Stroke of Madness, A Necessary Evil, Exposed, Black Friday, Damaged and Hotwire along with her stand-alone novels, One False Move and Whitewash, have been widely praised by critics and fans. They have appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. Her books have been published in twenty-six countries and have hit the bestseller lists in Australia, Germany, Poland, Italy and the UK.
One False Move was selected as Nebraska’s 2006 One Book One Nebraska. In 2007 Alex was awarded the Mari Sandoz Award by the Nebraska Library Association. Whitewash made January Magazine’s list of best thrillers for 2007. Exposed, Black Friday and Hotwire received starred reviews by Publishers Weekly.
She also has co-authored two short stories in the anthologies: First Thrills, edited by Lee Child (After Dark, co-authored with Deb Carlin) and Florida Heat Wave, edited by Michael Lister. A Breath of Hot Air, co-authored with Patricia Bremmer is now on KINDLE and NOOK.