Hooray for James Ziskin and Ellie Stone!

INGRID THOFT

It would require a separate blog entry to list the accolades garnered by James Ziskin's Ellie Stone series, but let's start with nominations for Edgar, Barry, Anthony, and Lefty Awards.  The latest installment, Cast the First Stone, will be released next week and is receiving rave reviews (including my own).  I'm thrilled that Jim could stop by to tell us about Ellie's latest adventure and answer your questions.

INGRID: Let's talk about your main character, Ellie Stone.  What inspired you to write a female character based in the 1960’s?

JIM: Through the first five novels, Ellie is a twenty-something woman in 1960-62. She was born in 1937 into a cultured, academic family in Manhattan. A series of family tragedies has left her the last Stone standing. She now works for a small-town daily newspaper in upstate New Holland, New York, where she must use her guile to do a man’s job while wearing a skirt. She’s not consciously aware of blazing any trails for women; she just wants a career that doesn’t come with a boss’s hand on the rear.

I wanted to make things as interesting and as tough as I could for my fictional newspaper reporter. Constant, regular challenges and conflict. That's part of the reason why I chose to write a female character set in the not-too-distant past. The early 1960s interested me because of the moment in history. We were entering a new decade that would bring political upheaval, war, the women’s movement, and the sexual revolution. But the Ellie Stone books predate those cultural seisms by a few years. Ellie’s both a witness and a catalyst in a changing world, one drink and one man at a time.

IPT: What do readers think about Ellie? 

JWZ: People seem to react to her better and better as the series progresses, perhaps because they’re getting to know her. It’s always a challenge when you introduce new characters. It takes some time for readers to feel comfortable with them, especially if you take some chances. Sometimes writers overreach and try to cram too much personality or backstory or description into the first pages of a new series.  Of course, in the best of all worlds, the writer achieves the perfect balance, and character and reader hit it off instantly.

But the most consistent feedback I get from readers about Ellie is that they love her spirit. She’s tough without being harsh. Wickedly funny and passionately empathetic at the same time. And they worry about her. She has some “bad” habits—drinking, smoking, putting herself at risk. And, of course, men. Readers often wish she’d be more careful. I think that’s great. It means they care about her. But I like to ask readers, “Do you wish Jack Reacher would take fewer chances?”

IPT: Bravo to that question!  Can you tell me about your time working in the film industry?  Has that played a role in your writing?

JWZ: My time in Hollywood was on the post-production side, specifically subtitling, translation, and visual effects. We translated and subtitled thousands of films and television shows (from Citizen Kane to Duck Dynasty) into as many as fifty languages. All of it contributed to my understanding of storytelling. One thing I realized early on was to appreciate the work screenwriters did, even on a bad movie. The screenplay made sense of the story.

I confess, however, that I did not learn about scriptwriting in any traditional sense. At least not the three-act structure people talk about. For my purposes, I call that “beginning, middle, and end.” It’s something I feel intuitively when telling a story, and I try not overthink it.

Translation, too, teaches valuable lessons about narration. Finding the right words, telling the story succinctly, reducing to the bare minimum without losing the essentials of the plot and the characters. And that goes for visual effects as well. There’s a visual lexicon in film that can be applied to description and action in fiction as well. Visualizing a scene helps me construct my narrative.

IPT: What has surprised you most about becoming a published author?

JWZ: How quickly one book turns into five with a sixth in progress. If you take it professionally, you’ll be surprised how productive you can be.

And a couple of other things. One, how generous mystery writers are. I love meeting and talking to writers and readers, and worry that too many writers miss out on this perk. At conferences and readings, they might see someone who intimidates them, who looks too shy, and they avoid that person. I want to search out people like that. I’ve met some great friends in this industry that way, readers and writers. I’ve learned a lot from them. Received invaluable feedback and support. And thanks to the generosity of the “big” writers, you can approach them. Even the biggest names give generously of their time.

And two, I am appreciative and so impressed by the work publishers do. Editing, cover design, and publicity. Of course, I knew there were people who did those things. But when you actually witness it up close, it’s remarkable how good the final product turns out.

IPT: Is there a wannabe book lurking in the back of your brain?  Something you would write if you didn’t have to consider agents, editors, and fans?  A romance? Sci-fi?

JWZ: Well, actually, the Ellie Stone books were those wannabe books once upon a time. I didn’t know if anyone would want to read a 1960, twenty-something female newspaper scribbler written by a man of certain age. But I fell so hard for Ellie, I sensed others might too. She’s just so fun to write.

But I also have other ideas brewing. Lots of them. A couple of thrillers in particular. Not modern-day thrillers, but throwbacks to the 1970s. The Cold War provided a fantastic backdrop for stories, don’t you think? I particularly love Frederick Forsyth. And Graham Greene. I’d like to write like them. How’s that for aiming high?

Jim is giving away a copy of Cast the First Stone.  Just comment to enter!

CAST THE FIRST STONE
February 1962: Tony Eberle has just scored his first role in a Hollywood movie, and the publisher of his hometown newspaper in upstate New York wants a profile of the local boy who’s made good. Reporter Ellie Stone is dispatched to Los Angeles for the story. But when she arrives on set to meet her subject, Tony has vanished. His agent is stumped, the director is apoplectic, and the producer is dead. Murdered.

Ellie is on the story, diving headfirst into a treacherous demimonde of Hollywood wannabes, beautiful young men, desperately ambitious ingénues, panderers, and pornography hobbyists. Then there are some real movie stars with reputations to protect. To find the killer, Ellie must separate the lies from the truth, unearthing secrets no one wants revealed along the way. But before she can solve Bertram Wallis’s murder, she must locate Tony Eberle.


James Ziskin (Jim to his friends) is the author of the Edgar-, Anthony-, Barry-, and Lefty-nominated Ellie Stone Mysteries. A linguist by training, James studied Romance Languages and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. After completing his graduate degree, he worked in New York as a photo-news producer and writer, and then as Director of NYU’s Casa Italiana. He spent fifteen years in the Hollywood post production industry, running large international operations in the subtitling/localization and visual effects fields. His international experience includes two years working and studying in France, extensive time in Italy, and more than three years in India. He speaks Italian and French. James lives in Seattle. He’s represented by William Reiss of John Hawkins and Associates, Inc.