Do you enjoy romances and thrillers? Why not try reading one of
Jill Gregory's novels?

Jill Gregory is an accomplished writer. She is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, with genres ranging from historical and contemporary romances to thrillers and mysteries.

Her newest thriller, The Illumination, co-authored by Karen Tintori, was recently released, and is already garnering rave reviews.

In this engaging interview, Jill offers a snapshot of her writing life by sharing what inspires her to write, whose stories she enjoys reading, and what is so great about being an author.

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When did you know that writing was what you wanted to do with your life?

Jill Gregory: “I always enjoyed writing for fun, but it was something I did when I was in the mood to write, rather than on a regular basis. I didn’t know that I wanted to become a writer until I was unable to get a teaching job after college. There was a surplus of teachers, and not enough jobs, so I started out doing work as a secretary.

I then read an article in a magazine about Rosemary Rogers, who was one of the first big romance writers. In the article, it said that she was also a secretary, but she became extremely successful with her writing. It also said that the historical romance genre was looking for writers.

I told my husband, ‘I can do this,’ even though I never thought being an author was within my grasp. I thought authors were exotic people who lived on a mountaintop somewhere. I considered it more, though, and thought to myself ‘Oh, they’re looking for writers. People have been telling me all my life that I’m a good writer.’ So I started researching how to submit a proposal, how to contact publishers, etc.”

What TV shows do you watch that help you plot out your storylines?

Jill Gregory: “I like to watch TV shows, but none of them actually help me plot out my storyline. They do, however, inspire a sense of creativity. I don’t think, ‘Oh, I could do something like this,’ but it opens up my imagination.

Programs like Lost and Fringe can open up my imagination to different possibilities and things I can do. I am also looking forward to watching Dollhouse by Joss Whedon. One of the actresses on it was on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer also, and it is about these women who live in this underground place called the ‘dollhouse’. It is run by some secret company that has the women play a role, and then their memories are wiped clean from whatever they just did. They don’t remember whom they really are. Eventually, the main character starts to get her memory back and wonder whom she is.”

I also highly recommend taking shows like these and finding your inspiration in them. One word that a person says, or the body movements of a certain character may help you find your own inspiration and engagement with characters you have been working long and hard to create. The wonderment element that makes up many of these shows of which Jill speaks make them more intriguing and exciting, thereby creating a fantasy world that you can delve into and manipulate in any way you want for your own writing style.

Who is your favorite author and why?

Jill Gregory: “That’s very difficult to say. I don’t have one favorite, but there are many authors whom I really love. I love the books of Mary Stewart, thrillers by Lee Child and Harlan Coben, and I love The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien.”

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides, and books by Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Nora Roberts round off Jill’s reading musts.

What is your favorite of all of the books you’ve written?

Jill Gregory: “I don’t have a favorite. I really don’t, because I’ve written all kinds of books, and each book is like your child. You don’t really have a favorite.”

How many books have you published and in how many languages?

Jill Gregory: “I have over thirty novels published in twenty-four different languages.”

When you first started writing, how long did it take at first to find a publisher and agent?

Jill Gregory: “I was actually very fortunate that the second publisher I submitted my book to accepted my proposal. I read The Writer’s Market, and was submitting according to what they suggested. At first, I sent it to Avon and got a rejection, and then to Ace, who wrote back requesting the entire manuscript in place of just the first four chapters they initially requested. I was going alphabetically in the book, and was looking to see which publishers were publishing historical romances. Both of these publishers were, so it just so happened that those were my first two choices.”

After you published your first book, what solidified for you that this was the career you wanted to continue?

Jill Gregory: “I loved the sense of accomplishment of having completed the entire book. I had never really written anything longer than a short story, so it was exhilarating to have completed an entire novel. I knew I could do it. All of a sudden I knew I was going to be a published author, and I became very excited and gung-ho to continue writing books. It is also the best job in the world. You get to make your own hours, you don’t have to go out into snowstorms to get to work, and you can take a day off whenever you feel like it. You don’t have to answer to anyone besides yourself, except for meeting deadlines. You have the freedom to plan your own schedule, and you can work in your comfy sweats; there’s no need to get dressed up. So, it’s a wonderful job. However, remember that sometimes you do have to work really hard to meet a deadline. You just have to find a proper balance between work and any distractions that may occur.”

How do you come up with titles for your books?

Jill Gregory: “Sometimes the title just comes to you, which is a wonderful gift from the writing gods. Other times it is just like hitting your head against the wall. Titles are very important because you want the title to grab the reader and also to reflect the story. Obviously, it has to be very brief – an encapsulation of everything you feel about the book. It reflects the book, but in a very abbreviated form.”

You’ve written previous contemporary romances with Karen Tintori, under the name Jillian Karr. However, when you wrote your first three contemporary romances on your own, did you know as you were writing the first one that there would be two more in the series, or was it on its own at first?

Jill Gregory: “With Karen, we wrote two contemporary romantic suspense novels, titled Something Borrowed, Something Blue and Catch Me If You Can. I later wrote Thunder Creek, Night Thunder, and Thunder at Dawn, which turned into a series. At first, Thunder Creek was on its own, but then I really liked the town, and I decided to write another book set there, and to bring in the characters of the Barclays. Some of my previous historical romances had the Barclay brothers introduced in them (Once an Outlaw and Rough Wrangler, Tender Kisses). Those two novels had two of the brothers, but I kept getting letters from people asking when I was going to write the third brother’s story, that of Nick Barclay. So, I put a descendant of the Barclays into one of my contemporary romances. Ty Barclay is the sheriff in Night Thunder, and his sister Faith is a prosecutor in Thunder at Dawn.

After those three contemporary romances, Jill also wrote Wolf River, as the genre was definitely accepting of her novel-writing abilities.

Do you prefer writing historical or contemporary romances?

Jill Gregory: “I like both of them, and I like switching off. It’s a nice change of pace.”

What are the positives and not-so-positives about writing historical romances?

Jill Gregory: “I can’t think of anything that’s not positive. I enjoy doing period research and learning about the history and the way of life of people in different times. It’s always interesting for me.”

What are the positives and not-so-positives about writing contemporary romances?

Jill Gregory: “It was a big challenge for me at first to write a contemporary romance on my own, because I’d never written one before. I looked at it as an inviting challenge to see if I could do it, and I could, which was great. It was interesting to write about situations and people in contemporary times and capture the character of a woman in today’s times. It was a challenge to capture the rhythm of language and plotlines of today after coming out of writing historical romances.”

What made you start writing contemporary romances after such a long of time of historical ones?

Jill Gregory: “I thought it was time for a change. It was another way of challenging myself.”

There is always room to try something new. If you’re finding that you’re not so great at one type of writing, you might just find that you’re spectacular at another. Or even if you’re good at one thing, it’s nice to try to move out of your comfort zone. You may just find that you’re just as good a non-fiction writer as an essayist, or just as great a novelist as a poet. Or you may find that your niche was just around the corner the whole time, and you’ve just found what truly works for you and your writing style.

What other types of books have you written beside romances?

Jill Gregory: “The last two books I have written have been with Karen Tintori. The Book of Names came out in January of 2007, and The Illumination was just released in January of 2009. They are both thrillers, but I have also written in anthologies along with some other authors. The Once Upon A… series of anthologies were written with Nora Roberts, Marianne Willman, and Ruth Ryan Langan. They are all paranormal, fantasy tales.”

What made you delve into the genre of thrillers?

Jill Gregory: “I started reading thrillers and loved them. About five years before we wrote The Book of Names, Karen [Tintori] took a Bat Mitzvah class and learned a fascinating Talmudic legend. You see, in every generation there are thirty-six righteous souls upon whose merit God keeps the world in existence, and if even one of them should die before their time, the world would begin to spin out of control. This is in the Talmud. She learned that in her class, and told it to me, and it was just such an amazing idea that something so mystical was going on in the world. I said it would make a great thriller – someone wants to end the world and others want to keep the world going. Only God knows who each Lamed Vovnik is.

We couldn’t get past the problem of how people would know who each Lamed Vovnik is in order to kill them or save them. Finally, one day we just said we have to do this, and we wanted to write a thriller together. So, we went and brainstormed for hours.”

How is it working with another person as a writing partner? Do your ideas generally mesh well together, or do you sometimes come to a standstill trying to decide whose ideas win out?

Jill Gregory: “It’s a little bit of both. We generally mesh very well together. We’ve been best friends for over twenty years. We think alike, and sometimes we say the same things at the same times. Even when we’re writing, we’ll come up with the same character name at the same time. At odd times we may have disagreements about something and we have to put ego aside and find out what is best for the book. We look at it impartially, and try to decide which way to go.”

What prompted you and Karen Tintori to want to work together? Was it a common interest in a piece you were both considering writing, or something else altogether?

Jill Gregory: “We always liked working together. It’s fun to work with another person. When you’re working with a partner you don’t get stuck as much. It’s two brains working instead of one. Someone will think of something that will stimulate you; so, you kind of keep each other going. Writing can be a very lonely job. When you’re working with your best friend or someone you are very comfortable with and have fun with, it can break up that loneliness.”

As I’ve read your books, I can see the movie of each book playing out in my head. Do you ever wish that any of your books would become movies?

Jill Gregory: “Always! They all should be movies. Seriously, whenever I write a book, I picture it as a movie. That’s especially true of Something Borrowed, Something Blue. It was a CBS TV movie in 1997.

I definitely see The Book of Names as a movie, and The Illumination as well.”

Jill Gregory’s most recent novel, The Illumination, is available in stores near you. Be sure to pick up a copy and find out why her writing is on those bestseller lists and published in so many languages. Her writing will leave you guessing, but will always supply the necessary answers!

For more about Jill Gregory, check out her website by clicking here.

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