Check out Jeffrey J. Mariotte’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeffrey J. Mariotte.

Jeffrey, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Since my first post-college job ended after three years, I’ve made my living from words and books and publishing. That series of careers started at Books Inc. in San Jose, CA, where I met authors and editors and publishers for the first time and found the community I belonged to. The company sent me to La Jolla, CA, where I managed Hunter’s Books for a decade–which is where I was working when I sold my first short story, a science fiction tale, to a prestigious anthology. When that store closed, I took a part-time gig writing the backs of trading cards for my friend Jim Lee, an artist who was part of the Image Comics phenomenon of the 90s. That gig turned into a full-time job, eventually as VP of Marketing for Jim’s company, WildStorm Productions–but on the side, I was writing comic books, and then novels (beginning with one about some of the company-owned comics). From there, I was introduced to the editor running the Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel line for Pocket Books. I wrote a Buffy novel, then the Angel spin-off started, and I was in on the ground floor for that. Fast-forward to now, and in the intervening years I’ve served as a Senior Editor for DC Comics and Editor-in-Chief for IDW Publishing, co-founded a successful independent genre bookstore, and written 70-some novels, about 175 comics and graphic novels, a few dozen short stories, a DVD game, and more.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I love to write books that are suspenseful, gripping, and the can’t-put-it-down sort of thing that keeps people reading late into the night. At the same time, I try to explore meaningful social issues of race, class, inequality, and the like. Most of my books and stories are set in the West, often in the borderlands, and quite a few in Arizona (modern and historical). They’re mostly thrillers, horror novels, and Westerns. I like to visit real places, and then take readers there–even when I write about fictional locales, they’re based on real places, and usually ones I’ve spent time in.

If there’s a single theme that is predominant in my work, it’s probably the idea that magic is all around us–we only have to be open to it to find it.

Artists face many challenges, but what do you feel is the most pressing among them?
For writers, the challenges are many. The publishing industry has gone through massive consolidation since my early days in the business, so the biggest few publishers–the ones that pay the best–are fewer and fewer. And they’re mostly beholden to stockholders, which makes them less likely to take on a new author and grow that author’s career over numerous books. They want a blockbuster right out of the gate, and most of us don’t write blockbusters. The vast, vast majority of authors have day jobs–as I do–and work on their art when they can fit it in around that and the other challenges of life, and most of them make very little money at it. I’ve been blessed, but it remains a struggle, and every new book is a gamble–will anybody want to publish it? If they do, will anybody want to read it?

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
My website, which isn’t updated nearly often enough (my fault) is http://www.jeffmariotte.com. Their readers can see all of my books, my short fiction, and my comics and graphic novels. With my wife and frequent co-author Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell–a fantastically talented author and poet in her own right–I appear at various local events. The next one coming up is the KJZZ Holiday Storyfest & Author’s Showcase on December 1 at the Glendale Civic Center. I always try to bring whatever’s new to those, and also an assortment of out-of-print rarities for people to discover.

Of course, many of my books can be found at local independent bookstores, or ordered if they’re not in stock, and at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.jeffmariotte.com
• Email: jmariotte@aol.com
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JeffreyJMariotte/
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/JeffMariotte

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