Recently, I had the opportunity to interview J.T. Ellison, the best-selling author of the Taylor Jackson series and Nashville Scene’s Best Mystery/Thriller Writer of 2008 about her new novel, The Immortals. J.T. is also a columnist at the Anthony Award–nominated blog Murderati, and a member of several professional writing organizations, including International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America.
Prior to your writing career, you worked as a White House staffer and as a financial director and marketing analyst for several defense and aerospace contractors. What made you make the jump into the world of mysteries and thrillers?
A move, an inability to find a job, and a stray cat. We moved to Tennessee in late 1998, and there weren’t a lot of jobs in my field. To get out of the house, I went to work for the vet that saved my five-week-old adopted pound cat from being put down. On the third day, I picked up a golden retriever and ruptured a disc in my back, had to have surgery, and while recovering, discovered the books of John Sandford. I was three books into the Prey series when I realized I wanted to try it for myself. I’ve always been interested in crime and forensics, so it was a natural extension of my interests at the time.
You’ve worked with the Metro Nashville Police Department, the FBI, and various other law-enforcement organizations to research your books. Are there any pointers you can offer to writers as to how to approach law enforcement for assistance?
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. My experience has been universal—they want you, the author, to get it right. Call them up and tell them what you’re about, what your project is, and that you want to get the research correct. For major organizations, try the public information office first. Many organizations have civilian classes, like the FBI’s Citizen’s Academy. I would suggest making sure when you are quite clear that this is fiction; I had an incident once where I called to find out about video security footage around a popular lake here in Nashville, told the woman I was “dropping a body in her lake” and she got very quiet, then said, “Really?” in such a horrified tone that I nearly bit through my lip to keep from laughing. Be clear, that’s my advice.
The Immortals is your latest release in the very successful Taylor Jackson series. Can you tell us a little bit about this book?
I love this book. I know you’re not supposed to pick favorites amongst your own works, but when I started writing this one, I’d just come off a really grueling serial killer novel, one that kept me up at night with terrible nightmares. In The Immortals, Taylor Jackson is faced with a totally new kind of adversary, a world she’s not at all familiar with in Nashville, the subculture of witchcraft and mysticism. On Halloween night, Samhain, eight teenagers are murdered, all with pentacles carved into their flesh. It’s staged to look like Satanists, but these crimes are much more complex than they first appear. Taylor is aided by a Wiccan high priestess, Ariadne, who helps her understand the pagan and Wiccan lifestyle, and the truth behind the murders.
The Immortals has some paranormal elements as it deals with witchcraft and mysticism. Is this due to the popularity of paranormals in the publishing industry?
Actually, no, not at all. I wrote the proposal for this one back in 2007, and I didn’t set out for it to delve into the supernatural. I think the occult and the paranormal has always been of interest to creative people, and that’s where the story took me. The research I did for this book was so much fun. I’ve always been a seeker, though I was raised Episcopal and went to church for ages, I’ve always been rather open to all kinds of theologies. A friend called me spiritually liberal the other day—that’s fitting. Coming off The Cold Room, and the incredibly difficult-to-stomach research I needed to do to make that book come to life, I felt an affinity for gentleness and naturalism of Wicca and paganism, which led to deeper research than I might have normally done, especially on Wicca and Buddhism. I have a couple of friends who are Wiccans too, so they were a huge help pointing me in the right direction. What I loved was the fact that the entire time I was researching and writing the book, I didn’t have a single nightmare. Mysticism doesn’t scare me nearly as much as the horrors we inflict on one another.
