By
Lexxus Shaw
Raider
Shakedown Reporter
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Award-winning author J.T.
Ellison has been able to make people feel like they had known her long before the
interview with her on Nov. 17, 2012 at Mysteries and More Bookstore in Nashville.
Ellison just received the "ITW Thriller
Award" for best paperback book for her bestselling Taylor Jackson novels
and has since published another series on Samantha Owens, the best friend of
her first character Taylor Jackson. Through this interview, I have gotten to
know Ellison better and have started to read “All the Pretty Girls”, the first
book in the Taylor Jackson series.
According to Ellison, all of her Nashville
books, which are the Taylor Jackson series, have very realistic settings. She
says that it is important to be true to your subject and that a reader could
actually drive around Nashville and see the places she used. As for the
characters in her book, she did not model any of the characters on anyone she
knew. She describes Taylor as “an embodiment of her own hero complex.” She says
that she and Taylor “share biographical details.”
When asked if she had a favorite between her two
series characters, Taylor and Sam, Ellison said that she “likes them both.” They
are both totally different characters. She describes Taylor as “the girl you
wanna go and have a beer with” and Sam as the girl that “when you’ve got a cold,
she's the one you want to come take care of you.” Taylor is described as a tall
blonde and Sam as smaller with dark hair, which made Sam harder to write,
according to Ellison.
When using social media to promote her books,
Ellison tries to stay as real as possible. She says that people don’t want to
be marketed to. She used a different name when on social media sites until she
got ousted.
Ellison says she loves to hear what her fans
have to say and getting their take on what they like and don’t like. Even though
Ellison loves her fans, she doesn’t change ideas based on what a fan might or
might not like. However, she does take her husband’s and editor’s opinions into
account. Even though Ellison has been through three editors and is now on her
fourth, she claims that this is just the nature of publishing. Ellison says she
really appreciates all of them, but especially her first editor, who taught her
what editing was about.
When asked about her thoughts on technology and
books, Ellison is certain that books will remain along with technology.
“I don’t think books are going away," she
said. “I think there’s room for both. Think of the movies. Some people will
only go see a movie in the theater; some people will only get it on DVD; and
some people do both. That’s exactly what’s happening with books. Some people
only read paperbacks; some people will only read hard covers; and some will
only read ebooks. It's just a new delivery method, which means you get to reach
more people. So I don’t think there gonna (going to) go away anytime soon.”
Many fans of Ellison and readers of her novels
know that before she was an author she worked in the White House as the
Presidential Appointee. When asked about her career change, Ellison said that
she had a blast working in the White House, but it wasn’t for her.
“Working in the White House was a blast,” she
said. “It was so much fun. It was the natural thing to do when I graduated, and
I couldn’t manage that for long because it’s so… It’s politics. It’s very
difficult work, and its life changing, but it’s also just… I’m trying to think
of the right way to phrase it .You can only do it so long before it corrupts
your soul, and I didn’t want that to happen. It’s all about power, and I’m all
about [just] art. It wasn’t gonna
match up very well.”
Ellison tells artist not to let people derail
them. She shared a story about a professor who told her she wasn’t good enough
to be published, and she stopped writing for eight years. This could be the
reason she ended up in the White House first instead of becoming an author to
begin with, but as far as one can see, JT Ellison is a very nice, creative and
inspiring person with a message to her readers to always “trust and be true to
yourself.”
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