The Jill Amadio Interview

I’m assuming there will be other Tosca Trevant mysteries, is that a correct assumption?

Yes, indeed. I am already writing the next book in the series, titled “Digging Up Shamus.” Again, it is set in California. For the third book I am sending Tosca back to Cornwall where she will undoubteldly find another body or two.

I saw on your website that you are part of two mystery writers groups. Those are Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. How are those groups helpful to you as a writer and at what stage of writing would you suggest a new writer join them?

SinCLA and MWA are tremendous national support groups with local chapters for crime writers at any stage in their writing career – newbie, veteran, whatever. Winning one of their annual awards is a great honor. The groups host monthly meetings with best-selling authors and forensics experts as speakers. New authors are given the opportunity to read from their works-in-progress, and we have great workshops. SinCLA hosts a very successful yearly crime conference, California Crime Writers Conference, in the Los Angeles area. Most cime writers belong to one or both, appreciating the many other benefits from their national headquarters.

You do something else that not a lot of writers can pull off as successfully as you do and that is ghostwriting. Can you delve a little bit into this aspect of your writing career, how it came about and how one would employ you to ghostwrite?

I was writing a business column for a magazine and a gentleman called to ask if anyone would care to ghostwrite his new business book. The editor asked me. I’d never written a book before – I said that 1,500 words for an article was about my limit. The editor pointed out, though, that if I regarded each chapter as an article, it’d be less daunting. So I took on the project. Then a TV station interviewed me about ghosting, and I was then contacted by the wife of Rudy Vallee, the most famous name in America back in the 1930s. After that, I got a lot of referrals. In all I have ghosted 14 biographies and a crime novel for a lady who had always dreamed of having her name on a book. That’s a long story, but it got me thinking about writing a mystery of my own. So I did. I have a ghostwriting website where potential clients, and hopeful ghosters, can find out all about the process. I often give talks about ghostwriting and its pros and cons.

When it comes to ghostwriting, are there any topics or people subjects you would shy away from or consider taboo?

I wrote a true crime but thankfully it had very little graphic violence. I doubt I could face describing torture. Or triple X-rated sex stories.

Can you share with our readers what is next for Jill Amadio?

I have just finished writing a biography of an international triathlete who had an almost-fatal stroke in the middle of an Ironman race. He was 33. The book describes the terrible event, and his miraculous recovery, rehab, and current life. I also write a monthly column for MysteryPeople.com, an online UK mystery magazine. I belong to the California Cornish Cousins, and the Cornish-American Heritage Society, and have written for My Cornwall magazine, based in Cornwall. And front and center is Tosca and her next adventure.

Finally, I have a lightning round of favorites and preferences for you, elaborate as much as you want or not, on each of your answers.

Favorite dessert?

Fruit cobbler.

Do you prefer walks on the beach or a walk inside your favorite shoe store?

Beaches at the ocean.

Favorite mystery writer of all time?

Graham Greene, gotta add Michael Connelly.

Favorite screen adaptation of a book?

Dr. Zhivago.

Cats, dogs or birds?

Birds.

Lazy rainy days or thunderstorms?

Thunderstorms.

Fastest car you’ve driven?

Lamborghini – any model.

Favorite phobia to give a character?

Murderous intent.

Fast food place you’d be seen in most often?

Jack in the Box

Happiest time in your life?

Every day.

Thanks Jill for your time.

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I hope everyone has enjoyed the Jill Amadio interview. If you have any questions for Jill, please leave them in the comments section.