Spotlight Profile
November 2005
"Learn avidly. Question repeatedly what you have learned. Analyze it carefully. Then put what you have learned into practice intelligently." - ConfuciusJessica Jahiel, Ph.D, a four-year member of Sisters in Crime, is an internationally-recognized clinician and lecturer, and a critically-acclaimed, award-winning author of books about horses, riding and training. Her trademarked system of teaching and training, Holistic Horsemanship®, is based on establishing and enhancing communication and trust between horse and rider. Certified by the American Riding Instructor Certification Program (ARICP) as an instructor of Dressage and Combined Training, Dr. Jahiel works with riders of all ages and levels, and welcomes horses of all breeds and disciplines. Dr. Jahiel teaches and trains according to classical dressage principles. Her interest is in helping riders learn to enjoy their horses and horses learn to enjoy their riders. As part of this system, she teaches from the horse's point of view. She has a B.A in Cinema, an M.A. in History, and a Ph.D in History of Science. She says the strangest jobs she's ever held were working as a substitute teacher in Boston public school system and working in a piano bar.
IC: You are best known for your work with horses and for non- fiction writing related to horse training and behavior. How did you become involved with Sisters in Crime?
JJ: A few years ago, I had mentioned to a friend of mine that I was thinking of writing a horse-related mystery, and she encouraged me to join SinC. She was a member of the Internet chapter and said that she had found the support and camaraderie invaluable. I looked into the origins of the organization, realized that it was created in a good cause that still needs support - and decided that I should be supporting SinC even if I wasn't writing mysteries yet, and even if I couldn't be an active member. So I joined - and just then my own work schedule more or less doubled because of professional and family commitments, so I've remained a newsletter-reading, non- participant member, sort of a sub-Guppy. I'm looking forward to the day when my schedule relaxes enough for me to participate properly, and in the meantime, I find it very comforting to know that SinC exists and that I'm part of it in some way.
IC: You're currently working on a mystery that involves (of course!) horses. Even though you have no immediate plans to publish it, can you tell us a little bit about the protagonist and/or the plot?
JJ: Gladly! I can't claim to be making great progress, at my current rate of half an hour a week... but they are very enjoyable half hours. The protagonist - based on quite a few equine journalists I've known over the years - is a young woman who writes for a popular equestrian magazine. Since childhood, she's known what she wanted to do - ride horses and write about horses. She got her dream job just after college, and it continued to be her dream job for the first few years. Over the next few years, she came to understand the reality of magazine work - that is, that "her" magazine, like so many others, was more about advertising dollars than about providing quality information to the readership. Although she thinks of herself as sophisticated and aging rapidly, she's still young enough to be surprised and shocked by this. When a body is discovered at a local training stable, she becomes involved with the investigation. As more and more possible motives (and possible suspects) are identified, she discovers that she enjoys investigating - but also discovers that her new interest isn't compatible with her 9-to-5 schedule at the magazine.
IC: You have such a busy schedule with your non-fiction writing and your work with horses and horsemen that it must be difficult to find time to write fiction. What makes writing (and reading) fiction enjoyable for you?
JJ: I'm not even certain that I would classify writing and reading as "enjoyable" - for me, they're like breathing. It's not so much that I think about wanting to do them, it's that I do both compulsively and couldn't possibly NOT do them. Fiction, nonfiction... never mind, both, either - gotta read, and gotta write!
IC: There are certainly a lot of us who can identify with that! As an avid reader, so you have favorite authors? Who are they, and why?
JJ: Oh, heavens. I have so many - I would go on for pages. To avoid that, I'll just mention two: Dorothy Dunnett: my gold standard for writing, descriptions, dialogue, and characters. James Lee Burke: now that Dorothy Dunnett is no longer with us, he has become my gold standard for all of those things.
IC: Do you have a favorite book? If so, what is it and why does it strike a chord with you? If not, why do you think that is?
JJ: If I had to name a single favorite book (and that's incredibly difficult), it would have to be Rudyard Kipling's Kim. In terms of flow and description, it's just about perfect. There are single lines and phrases that ARE perfect, in the same way that a really great guitarist like Eric Clapton will sometimes hit a perfect note - you recognize those moments of perfection because you feel them as much as you hear (or read) them, and the hair stands up on the back of your neck.
IC: You have such a variety of interests. What attracts you to the crime writing/mystery genre?
JJ: I'm fascinated by several aspects of the genre. All of my training and all of my experience - as scientist, historian, horseman, and sometime Buddhist - has taught me to look closely at everything and take nothing for granted, and always, to investigate and analyze and evaluate. The problem- solving aspect of mysteries appeals to me. The fact that readers can't just slop along skipping pages and skimming text appeals to me - mysteries require reader participation, and teach their readers to read carefully and notice everything, so I think that in addition to being good entertainment, mysteries are very good for developing reading and thinking and problem-solving skills. And, of course, I enjoy books that provide two things we don't often see in real life: justice and closure.
I'm curious about why so many people appear to believe that mysteries are somehow a lesser form of writing, and why "novels" would somehow be superior. To me, it's really just the opposite - a mystery is a novel that contains certain specific elements and that, overall, tends to follow a certain format. I think it's actually more difficult to do good, original, exciting, moving writing within ANY sort of formula or format or set pattern. In the same way that crafting a truly good sonnet is more difficult than expressing the same sentiments in free verse, crafting a good mystery is, to my mind, more difficult than most other forms of story-telling. I have a lot of respect for the genre.
IC: When you find a book you love, do you read it over and over, or do you move on to another and not look back?
JJ: Both. I have a bookcase full of "keepers", including a lot of books that I loved as a child and still re-read from time to time. I read a lot, and most books don't fall into the &auot.keeper" category. Most books I'll read once and then pass along - there are many institutions that want books and simply can't afford to buy many new ones. Poorer hospitals and nursing homes, for instance, are often very short of books (and I can't even imagine the horror of being elderly, confined to a nursing home, and without anything to read). Some small libraries have very limited budgets. And now, after the recent spate of hurricanes, libraries throughout the devastated areas of Louisiana and Mississippi are going to have to rebuild their collections - and their bookshelves - and their buildings - from the ground up.
IC: You have such a respect for books. Do you come from a family of readers? Where do you think your love of words comes from?
JJ: My family is devoted to reading. From birth, I was surrounded by thousands of books... and by cats. Let me tell you - early imprinting works! I've been surrounded by books and cats ever since. When I bought an old farmhouse that was built in the late 1850s, I finally had an excuse for owning so many books: All those bookshelves really help to insulate the walls! And of course farms need both house cats and barn cats, so multiple cats are a necessity, not a luxury. As you can tell, in addition to being devoted to reading and writing, I'm also devoted to rationalizing.
IC: With so much on your plate, what is your writing schedule like?
JJ: I write for several hours a day even on my "non-writing" days (the ones when I'm teaching clinics or lecturing somewhere). On "writing days", I write for at least ten or twelve hours, with occasional gusts to sixteen hours if I'm completing a manuscript (or, as now, going over an edited manuscript). Of course, on those sixteen-hour days, nothing else gets done - the animals get fed, but that's it. No laundry, no house-cleaning, no personal phone calls, and a lot of crumbs on the keyboard.
IC: How do you research your books? (Or do they all come from personal experience?)
JJ: Most of what I write is from my own experience. Thirty-plus years of educating riders and training horses, teaching clinics, giving lectures, and answering questions add up to a useful amount of personal experience. My office walls are lined with books on horses and riding (completely justifiable as additional insulation, you understand), so I also have the benefit of hundreds of years of OTHER people's experience. That's just as well. We all learn from mistakes, and we probably learn the most from our own personal mistakes, but I'm always grateful for the chance to learn from others. Let's face it, there's just no way that I could possibly live long enough to make (and learn from) ALL the mistakes myself.
IC: Any advice you'd like to give to fellow SinC members?
JJ: I don't have advice, as such, because in the mystery-writing area, I'm a complete novice, and I'm far more likely to need THEIR advice. But I do have an offer: If anyone is writing a mystery that involves horses and riding, I'll be glad to help out by answering questions and by suggesting reference books and other information sources. Nobody can be an expert on every subject, and this was brought home to me recently, when I read a book by an author whose previous books I had enjoyed. Alas, this particular book included a sub-plot that involved a Kentucky horse farm and wealthy Kentucky horse-folk, and... let's just say that although the author thanked horse-owning friends in his Acknowledgements section, he managed to get so many things so very wrong that I kept muttering saying "Wha..?? Huh???? Say WHAT? Do WHAT?" as I read. After that, I couldn't get back into the story, because I kept wondering what other information was equally inaccurate. Medical details? Legal details? Bomb-construction details? I didn't enjoy the rest of the book, and haven't picked up a book of his since. Thinking "It doesn't really matter" or "I'll just say anything, nobody will notice" doesn't work well when you're writing a novel, and when it's a mystery, wrong terms and inaccuracies of behavior matter a LOT, because to the people who DO know, these departures from accuracy either mark the author as ignorant and careless, or appear to be deliberate clues. In this case, my very first thought was "Aha! These can't be the real owners of the farm, they're clearly not horse folk, they must have killed the true owners or locked them away somewhere! It's part of the plot!" Then, a page later, when blatant errors were showing up in every other description, I was forced to accept the fact that it was NOT part of the plot, the author had simply not bothered to "do his homework".
I belong to several horse-related mailing lists, and believe me, when the word goes around that there's a mystery with an ACCURATE depiction of horses and riding, that book is guaranteed to sell several thousand (at least) additional copies within the equestrian community. This doesn't happen when the verdict from the first person to read the book is "Don't bother, s/he's obviously never been near a horse." That's a call to inaction, as opposed to "You have to buy this one, the author got it right!" So perhaps I do have a piece of advice after all. If your next mystery is going to include references to a specialty area, take the time, make the effort, get it right! Whether the subject is ballistics or tall ship rigging or riding or dog-training or refinishing antiques, somebody out there - probably hundreds if not thousands of somebodies - WILL NOTICE, and WILL CARE, and if you get it right, that somebody, or those somebodies, are going to tell all their friends "You have to buy this book!"
IC: Great advice! Just one more question. You're in the Spotlight. Is there anything you'd like to add, or any other topic you'd like to address?
JJ: I expect I've taken more than enough of everyone's time already. My, how I do go on...
This interview was conducted for SinC-IC
by Elizabeth Terrell.
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