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J.T. Ellison is the author of A Very Bad Thing, which is available now.
J.T. Ellison is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels and the Emmy Award–winning cohost of the literary TV show A Word on Words. She also writes urban fantasy under the pen name Joss Walker.
With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim and prestigious awards. Her titles have been optioned for television and published in twenty-eight countries.
J.T. lives with her husband and twin kittens, one of whom is a ghost, in Nashville, where she is hard at work on her next novel.
A Very Bad Thing is a thriller about one author at the pinnacle of her career, whose past threatens to destroy everything she has—and everyone she knows.
Let’s get to know J.T. as she talks favorite novels, writing for the thriller/mystery genre, a preview of A Very Bad Thing and more!
What are some of your favorite novels?
It’s so hard to narrow down! I love a wide variety of artists’ work. I’ve been greatly influenced by Hemingway—Hills Like White Elephants is one of my favorite stories ever. So bleak and perfect. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. Anything by Diana Gabaldon. Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poetry, especially The Eagle, A Fragment. Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman. My favorite current title is Lisa Jewell’s None of This is True. It’s utterly brilliant.
When did you know you wanted to become an author?
That’s an interesting question. I’ve always been a writer. From a young age, I wrote little short stories and poems. I went to school to study creative writing, but a professor told me I wasn’t good enough to get published, so… I quit. Then we moved to Nashville, and everything changed. I felt the call again. I wrote a crime fiction novella, and a friend read it and loved it. He said I should really think about publishing. It was a brave new world for me, but I set out on the path. That was over twenty years ago. Incredible, really, when I think about those nascent days flailing about in the dark, looking for fellow writers and learning the industry. It’s easier and harder now, I think. Easier to get information, but harder in the sense you must do your homework, and there’s no excuse not to.
What are some of your favorite aspects of the thriller/mystery genre?
I love the tension that exists when good people are put in tenuous situations. The idea that we don’t always know the people we’re closest to, and that anyone can be a hero. That the unlikeliest heroes are the most admirable. And the fact that justice almost always prevails. We’re taken on a ride for several hundred pages, and to do that, the characters have to be fantastically interesting and compelling. And I love a great plot.
What do you draw your story inspirations from?
I get my ideas from a million places—overheard conversations, snippets of news stories, previous experiences, new experiences—anything and everything tempts my writerly brain. It’s managing all of the ideas and pulling them together into a cohesive story that is the trick for me. But at its heart, all of my stories explore two things: justice for those who wouldn’t normally get it, and women coming into their own, realizing their power and worth in society. Using crime fiction as the backdrop makes these themes work perfectly.
What can readers expect from A Very Bad Thing?
A sweeping, multi-faceted, multi-pov story that explores how and why we keep our biggest secrets. It starts with a world-famous author who is murdered on the last night of her triumphant book tour, and we unwind from there to determine who wanted her dead. Turns out, there’s a lot of motive, and a lot of suspects, and maybe everything you know isn’t true after all. It was a blast to write, and I hope everyone loves reading it!
What are you currently reading and what’s on your TBR (to be read) list?
I’m deep in The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, which is astoundingly good. Next up is Paula Hawkins’s A Slow Fire Burning, and then I want to go back in time and read Valley of the Dolls and The Andromeda Strain. So fun!
