#ThisorThatThursday Author Interview with Jon Sealey
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I’d like to welcome Jon Sealey to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!
Hardest thing about being a writer: You have to wear a lot of hats (author, proofreader, project manager, salesperson, accountant).
Easiest thing about being a writer: You don’t need special equipment, safety training, or nice weather to do it.
Things you need for your writing sessions: A good night’s sleep.
Things that hamper your writing: Noise. Ideally, I’m writing in a carrel by a window in an otherwise empty university library.
Things you always put in your books: Three of my four novels to date have a plotline around stolen cash.
Things you never put in your books: I don’t think I’ve ever written about a wedding, which surprises me now that I think about it.
Favorite places you’ve been: I enjoy the outdoors, so Ireland, the Chattooga River, the Minnesota Boundary Waters, and the Colorado Rockies.
Places you never want to go to again: I don’t think I ever need to go back to Nashville.
Favorite books (or genre): I enjoy detective novels and nonfiction about history, science, or theology.
Books you wouldn’t buy: Although I enjoy crime fiction, I’m not all that keen on true crime nonfiction.
The nicest thing a reader said to you: I had an aunt going through cancer treatments say that one of my novels was a welcome distraction to help her get through it. These days, that might be the only reason I keep writing fiction, the idea that a novel can be a gift to someone going through something.
The craziest thing a reader said to you: “Are you going to write a sequel to The Whiskey Baron?”
Some real-life story that made it to one of your books: My next novel, The Night Hawk, is about a dead roofer. My current house is in a new-construction neighborhood, and a few years ago, I heard this tremendous whoomph from two doors down, followed by a bunch of guys yelling. My stomach dropped because it sounded like a construction worker had fallen off a roof. Thankfully, it was only a pallet of shingles sliding off, but the next time I sat down to write, I reached for the nearest idea: What if a guy had fallen? What if it wasn’t an accident?
Something in your story that readers think is about you, but it’s not: My first novel, The Whiskey Baron, is about a bootlegger in a 1930s cotton-mill village, and I think some people have assumed I had an old bootlegger in the family. I do have some family who worked in the Carolina cotton mills, but the bootlegger came about because I needed a plot.
The first 8-track, record, cassette, or CD you ever bought: My cassette tapes are long gone, but I think the first one I got was one of Garth Brooks’s albums from the early ’90s.
A type of music that’s not your cup of tea: I’ve cycled through enjoying most genres (except polka). These days, I don’t care for music with bad psychic or spiritual energy.
My favorite book as a child: Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw
A book I’ve read more than once: Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter
Your favorite movie as a child: Maybe The Sandlot
A TV show or movie that kept you awake at night as a kid (or as an adult): Tim Burton’s first Batman gave me nightmares.
About Jon:
Jon Sealy is a Southern crime novelist, book editor, and communications consultant in Richmond, Virginia. He is the author of four previous novels, including The Whiskey Baron. His next project is the Detective Luke Steele mystery series, starting with The Night Hawk (forthcoming September 2026). To start the series, readers can download a free novella, Chasing Keys, from his website at jonsealy.com/free.
Let’s Be Social:
Free novella: jonsealy.com/free
Substack: jonsealy.substack.com
Facebook: facebook.com/JonSealyBooks
