Author Interview: John Desjarlais

John J. Desjarlais is an award-winning screenwriter and novelist whose work includes The Throne of Tara (Crossway 1990/iUniverse 2000), a Christianity Today Readers Choice Award nominee, and Relics (Thomas Nelson 1993), a Doubleday Book Club Selection. Desjarlais’ short stories, essays, and poems have appeared in such periodicals as Student Leadership Journal, U Magazine, The Critic, The Upper Room, On Being, Apocalypse, The Karitos Review, and The Rockford Review. He lives in northern Illinois where he is active in retired racing greyhound rescue and at work on a mystery series represented by The Jan Dennis Literary Agency.



Plug time. What book or project is coming out or has come out that you’d like to tell us about?

My first mystery novel, “This Is My Blood,” is currently making the rounds through my agent. In this story, classics professor Reed Stubblefield, recovering from a school shooting injury in a rural Illinois cabin, finds the locals abuzz over the new parish priest, reputed to be a healing stigmatic. Skeptical about religion since his wife’s death from leukemia, Reed is nevertheless drawn into a cautious friendship with the cleric, Father Ray, an Aquinas scholar with a fine library. Soon thereafter, on Good Friday, Father Ray collapses and bleeds to death in front of horrified parishioners. Was it a miracle? Or bloody murder?

Once Reed becomes the prime suspect in the mysterious death, he must apply Aristotelian logic to find the real killer before he, himself, is arrested or killed. It will be the first book in a series, and I’m at work on the sequel now. This is a departure from my earlier historical novels.

The Throne of Tara (Crossway 1990; re-issued through iuniverse.com 2000), a Christianity Today Readers Choice Award nominee, is based on the true-life story of Columba of Iona, the hot-headed Celtic monk who went to war over a book, and in remorse over the thousands slain, exiled himself among the savage Picts where he dueled the Druids, miracles versus magic.

Relics (Thomas Nelson 1993), a Doubleday Book Club Selection, features a young knight who seeks to replace relics lost in a suspicious cathedral fire but gets entangled in a terrorist plot to assassinate King Louis IX of France.


Tell us about your journey to publication. How long had you been writing before you got the call you had a contract, how you heard and what went through your head.

I was a producer/scriptwriter with a nonprofit charitable organization’s media department for nearly 12 years before I started doing free-lance articles and short stories on the side, publishing most of what I wrote. I started a novel in Summer 1987, and attended a Writer’s Conference in Summer 1988 when it was nearly done, seeking an editor or agent.

One editor suggested I query a friend of his who had begun a new agency. I got a response in 6 weeks asking for the manuscript. Two weeks later I received the phone call offering representation. I don’t think I realized then how blessed I was to get an agent so quickly. The book sold quickly, too, coming out in July 1990. The real thrill came when I saw the publicity ads in magazines and photos of the displays at the CBA Convention that year.


Do you still experience self-doubts regarding your work?

Every day. The important thing is to put your seat in the seat and keep going. The worst doubt arrives at about chapter 11-12 of a book (if you’re planning about 18-20 chapters), which is like hitting “the Wall,” as marathon runners call it. You look over your work and say, “this is junk.” Still, you must finish it.

The worst doubt I experienced was when my agent retired and my third historical novel kept getting rejected by agents I queried. My query was great; many agents asked to see the book. Then it would come back in the mail. One agent at a prestigious agency asked for revisions – twice – but then left her agency and the agency’s head said “no thanks.”

That hurt and the back-and-forth process ate up nearly two years. I eventually moved on to another project, but I still don’t know why that book never fulfilled its promise. It’s still sitting in my cabinet. Later, when the mystery novel was being rejected over and over, I wondered, “ok, here we go again - maybe I’m done with this.”

Finally, two agents called in the same week, asking to represent my work.
What’s the best advice you’ve heard on writing/publication?

The best story is no good until it’s on paper.

What’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve heard?

Start with short stories, and then write a novel. They are two very different forms. I started with short stories, to be sure, but you can’t learn to write novels by writing short stories. The sprint of the short story and the marathon of the novel are just too different.

What’s something you wish you’d known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration in the publishing business?

You must take charge of your own promotion campaign. Publishers do very little. It’s very easy to go out of print, get lost in the mid-list, or drop out of sight completely and quickly. So you must take charge of your writing career and understand that it is, indeed, a business. It’s all about “the numbers” and building a reputation.


Do you have a scripture or quote that has been speaking to you lately?

I can’t think of a particular one, but I’ll say that I’ve been working through the journals of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk in the 50s-60s who is well-regarded for his poetry and essays. When I read the journals, I feel like I’m meeting with a friend who understands me.

Is there a particularly difficult set back that you’ve gone through in your writing career you are willing to share?

I was working on my third historical novel when my employer “downsized” and I was out of work at age 40. I returned to grad school to become credentialed in the teaching of writing. After two years of school and three years of working hard to attain tenure at my college, I had written (and published) a few short stories and academic papers, but it took a long time to finish the novel, which was thereafter rejected by agents many times (my previous agent had retired).

I turned to writing mysteries instead, a move that has jump-started a stalled career.


What are a few of your favorite books? (Not written by you.)

I adore Susan Howatch’s Church of England series. The psychological and theological insights are striking. I like the essays/memoirs of Frederick Buechner and Kathleen Norris. I like stylish mysteries, and read The Maltese Falcon every year.

If your authorial self was a character from The Wizard of Oz, which one would you be and why?

I’d be the tornado. God spoke out of the whirlwind, and so do I.

What piece of writing have you done that you’re particularly proud of and why?

I’m grateful for whatever poetry I’ve produced that has found a home. Poetry is difficult to write and place. And I like “DeConstructing the Cathedral,” an essay that took Honorable Mention in a Writers Digest Competition.

Do you have a pet peeve having to do with this biz?

It’s all about the numbers. It’s becoming all about authors as brand names.

Can you give us a view into a typical day of your writing life?

I used to have a typical day: up at 5 am to care for the dogs, exercise, shower, do some spiritual reading and get into the seat by six with a hot cup of coffee beside me for a two-hour writing time. My writing is more sporadic now – very intense for a few days, then time off to recover.

When I had a 9-5 job, my writing was more regular. Now that I have an irregular day-job schedule, my writing schedule is irregular, too. Even so, I set long-term deadlines for myself as a way to stay on track.


If you could choose to have one strength of another writer, what would it be and from whom?

Thou shalt not covet – but I admire Susan Howatch’s insight into human motivations, and I am always stunned by the language of lyrical essayists like Frederick Buechner, Kathleen Norris, or Annie Dillard.

Do you have a dream for the future of your writing, something you would love to accomplish?

I’d like to have a mystery series that successfully expounds the “higher mysteries” for cultured unbelievers.

Was there ever a time in your writing career you thought of quitting?

I have quit projects – sometimes the writer’s best friend is the wastebasket – but I have never considered quitting writing itself.

What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a writer?

My favorite part is sitting and writing. My least favorite part is sitting and writing. Many writers tend to have this approach/avoidance relationship with their work.


How much marketing do you do? Any advice in this area?

I have learned the hard way that an author is largely responsible for marketing his/her own work. When my mystery comes out (and it will, right? My agent says it will!) I will pull out the stops and take every advantage of contacts I have cultivated: list serves, online discussion groups, fan and professional conventions, indie bookstores, chain store community relations directors, library system contacts, public radio, the works.

I plan to spend my entire advance on publicity in a concerted campaign.

Folks, the publishers will not do much for authors anymore. As distasteful as it may seem to some, you must become an entrepreneur of sorts and hawk your wares with press kits, postcards, newsletters, signings and seminars and interviews and so on. I can only do so much with my older titles now, though I continue to have sporadic book signings and appearances at libraries, schools, churches, and conferences. I maintain a web site and a blog (www.johndesjarlais.com and “Johnny Dangerous” at http://jjdesjarlais.blogspot.com) which will expand when the mysteries come out, and I take part in online interviews like this one.

Parting words?

“If you wish to be a writer, write.” - Epictetus. Oh, and read, too. Read widely. A good writer is a good reader. Read the way an architect looks at a building. Enjoy it for what it is, but then ask, “How did he do that? What choices were made here?

Johnny Dangerous, www.jjdesjarlais.blogspot.com
Web site: www.johndesjarlais.com