AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Jon Talton

Apr 28, 2010 by The Lit Witch

This week, I had the privilege of interviewing Jon Talton, author of Deadline Man.  Jon is an accomplished business journalist who has spent time at The Dayton Daily News, The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Arizona Republic, and (currently) The Seattle Times. He has also written several novels, including The David Mapstone series, The Pain Nurse, and Deadline Man, which is due for release on May 1st.  You can read my review of Deadline Man here.   Also, check out his website for further information about Jon and to keep up-to-date on his new releases.  Now without further adieu…

Q:  Let’s begin with something I was curious about as I read Deadline Man. Your central character is a financial columnist in Seattle who “tells it like it is” and even pays a visit to Arizona.  You yourself are a financial columnist in Seattle who hails from Arizona, where I have read you described as the “only guy who told it like it was.”  How much more of Jon Talton can be found in The Columnist from Deadline Man?

A: Much of me is in The Columnist, especially the idea that if one is granted a column it’s an obligation to speak truth to power. I know what it’s like to challenge the powers-that-be, get death threats, try to avoid antagonizing your bosses while telling the truth with the special latitude granted a columnist. I warned of the housing and financial busts before they happened and powerful people demanded that I be fired or silenced. And I share the character’s speed and ability to handle pressure. I was a full-time columnist at the Arizona Republic and Charlotte Observer, in addition to writing columns for the Rocky Mountain News, Cincinnati Enquirer and Dayton Daily News (and I was carried on the New York Times News Service). It’s a special craft when done well, and not the same as being a commenter or (average) blogger. For one thing, especially in business news, one has to be knowledgeable to have credibility. The craft of writing, fading now in our society, is another thing that distinguishes a successful newspaper columnist. And the ability to hook readers for years: Anybody can be a columnist for two weeks, then he or she runs out of gas. Being a serious newspaper columnist is a public trust. As for The Columnist’s chaotic personal life…no comment, except that in my thirties I did my share of being stupid and wanting to burn some rubber after being a dateless teen and twentysomething.

Q:  How did a history and theater major from Miami University find himself a career business columnist?

A:  Bad luck? A Misspent youth? Newspapers are dying and my craft is no longer valued by much of society, so I’m probably one of the last of the breed. And I didn’t get to D.C. as a superstar. So how smart was this career choice? I only did history at Miami for my master’s, but studied theater at Arizona State University and taught at Southeastern Oklahoma State. My instructor’s pay was so low, I went for a reporter’s job at the little local paper. In a couple of years, I was in suburban San Diego, where they needed a business editor. So from there, I was at the start of the professionalization of financial reporting in American newspapers outside of the Wall Street Journal. It was a growing field and I liked it, because business is so powerful and needs oversight; it also has some great stories to tell. I’ve done many fellowships, including at the University of Southern California. But it’s 25 years of working the front lines of business journalism, as well as working with some of the best in my field, that honed my craft.

Q:  I have read that you spent some time here in southwestern Ohio as the business section editor at The Dayton Daily News and a business columnist for The Cincinnati Enquirer.  What brought you to Ohio and what was memorable about your time at those institutions?

A:  I came in 1986 to work for the Dayton Daily News, one of the best papers in the country then and still good. It was a grand old newspaper, rich in traditions, incredibly deep in talent — I learned so much. Dayton was amazing in the talent, from the late Millie B., who knew how to do everything practical in her household tips column, to world-class reporters, critics, editors and artists. Such places just don’t exist anymore and it’s one reason the newspaper industry has faltered. Careful readers of Deadline Man will see much of the DDN. At the Enquirer, I was hired as a turnaround business editor, my specialty, to give what was seen as a lapdog, dull paper some swagger and bite. With a top-notch staff, we did that. But the Enquirer, too, was a place with history and held important place in such a magnificent and haunted city. I love Ohio; it was so good to me, and I mourn what’s been done to it. As for those papers, I wish I could have frozen time, where we had good newspapers that served the public trust, and enjoyed an informed citizenry that depended on them, argued with them, and when necessary for bad guys, feared them. But of course it’s been slipping away for my entire career.

Q:  Clearly you are an accomplished journalist.  What inspired you to add novelist to your resume?

A:  I didn’t know if I’d have a future in journalism, so I decided to pick a backup career that was practical and stable. I always wrote, long before I became a journalist. For four years I was an EMT and paramedic in Phoenix, and I started and eventually wrote a novel about it (unpublished). I wrote the plan for the Oklahoma regents to establish a theater degree at Southeastern State, and the business plan and narrative rationale for the Oklahoma Shakespeare Festival, now in its 30^th season and created by the legendary Molly Risso. So writing came before journalism. Journalism made me a better, more disciplined writer. In the mid-1990s, I came back from visiting Phoenix with the characters in my head that would populate the Mapstone Mysteries. I started Concrete Desert as a love letter home.

Q:  You painted a less than flattering picture of Gannett as a culprit in the dumbing down of US newspaper coverage in Deadline Man. I have since read that your departure from the Gannett-owned Arizona Republic was somewhat contentious, though your farewell letter to readers was very gracious.  What do you really think of Gannett and institutions like it in terms of their impact on the modern-day newspaper business?

A:  Gannett was good to me personally, especially considering how different and independent I was for a corporate culture that values homogeneity. That said, its influence has been pernicious, from buying up local papers and draining them of their distinctiveness, to setting a model on Wall Street that helped wreck companies such as Knight Ridder, to a fundamental mistrust of journalists and journalism. Gannett is not a real newspaper company. It is something different. Unfortunately, it owns newspapers. But I would point you to these two posts on my blog Rogue Columnist:

http://roguecolumnist.typepad.com/rogue_columnist/2008/01/whats-really-wr.html

http://roguecolumnist.typepad.com/rogue_columnist/2008/12/the-chickens-come-home-to-roost-at-gannett.html

Q:  Your book, The Pain Nurse, is the start of a series of mysteries known as the Cincinnati Casebooks.  What prompted you to set a series of books in Cincinnati?  When can readers look forward to a next installment?  Any teasers you can share?

A:  I love Cincinnati, for its deep cultural textures, history, people, cityscape. It’s an amazing city. So I wanted to set a book there to try to begin to reflect this rich setting. This, even though the model of success today requires a book set in New York, LA, Miami or some quirky or endearing rural setting. I intended The Pain Nurse to be a stand-alone, but my editor encouraged me to make it a series (and it has sold very well). Yet I want more freedom than in the Mapstone Mysteries. So Cheryl Beth and Will Borders from the first book will be part of the Cincinnati Casebooks, but they may not be the central characters in each book. I want to make Cincinnati the lead character. Otherwise, I just wrote the fastest novel of my life to have the new David Mapstone Mystery, South Phoenix Rules, ready for December. So I need to recharge before going back to Cincy.

Q:  Will readers ever see more of The Columnist, or was Deadline Man a stand-alone mystery?

A:  Deadline Man is a stand-alone. It’s the truest novel I’ve ever written, or at least published, and I hope it can speak beyond that prison called “genre fiction.”

My sincere thanks to Jon Talton for taking the time out of his busy schedule for this interview.  And thanks again to Poisoned Pen Press for providing a net-galley of Deadline Man for my review and for helping to arrange this interview.  Deadline Man can be purchased from Amazon by clicking the link below:

Deadline Man