Q&A With Jeffrey J. Mariotte 

Jeffrey J. Mariotte is an award-winning author of over seventy novels, all ranging from thrillers, westerns, mysteries, horror, fantasy and more! Jeff has also written short fiction and comics! I’m so glad we were able to connect on BlueSky! 

Q: Jeffrey, I enjoy reading just about anything especially mysteries/thrillers, fantasy and some horror! What is it about thrillers, mysteries, horror, fantasy and westerns that you enjoy writing so much and why?

A: Like most writers, I think, I grew up a fan of made-up stories in any medium or genre. I don’t remember when I learned to read, but I also don’t remember ever not knowing how to read. And I watched and read everything I could—westerns and mysteries and horror and adventure and science fiction, etc. As I grew older, I continued doing the same, and especially loved stories that combined different genres in new ways.

When I started writing, my love for different genres came through. My first professionally published work was a science fiction short story. After that I wrote some superhero comics and co-authored a superhero novel with my friend Christopher Golden. Then he introduced me to the editor who ran the Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel line at Simon & Schuster, and she hired me to write a Buffy book, then a bunch of novels based on the then-new spinoff series Angel. So even from the start, I was writing in different genres—and the Angel novels were basically a mishmash of horror and private-detective stories. 

I’ve written tie-in fiction—also called licensed fiction—in a huge range of genres, including horror novels about Buffy, Angel, Charmed, and 30 Days of Night, but also CSI and NCIS and Narcos, and superhero stuff like Superman and Gen13, and on and on.

I still love to read in multiple genres, and to write in whatever genre interests me now (or whatever a publisher will pay me for). 

Q: Would you please give a brief description of your work starting from your recent releases? 

A: My most recent release is Byrd’s Luck & Other Western Stories, a collection of short stories that’s half traditional western and half horror western. That was published by Silverado Press, a press that my compadre Howard Weinstein and I created to publish western fiction, because a few of the last remaining western publishers were closing their doors. The next book from Silverado, coming out early in 2025, is a short-fiction anthology called Silverado Press Presents: Western Stories by Today’s Top Writers. It contains stories from some of the best writers working in the field (and one by me). If it does well, we’re hoping to make it annual so we can offer a new, ongoing market for western short stories.

Other recent work includes Tarzan and the Forest of Stone, a novella about the world-famous ape-man Tarzan, only set in the deserts of Arizona instead of the jungles of Africa. I wrote a mystery trilogy called Major Crimes Squad: Phoenix and a western trilogy about a character named Cody Cavanaugh, the toughest librarian in the West. So even today I’m bouncing around between genres and loving it.

Q: Is it fair to say that any of the characters and stories within your novels have little bits and pieces of real people and places? 

A: Some of them absolutely do. I like to set novels in real locations, and I like to visit those places in person so I can soak up what it’s like to be there. The Tarzan book, for example, is set in and around Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, which my wife Marsheila Rockwell and I visited just as I was starting to work on the book. Tarzan is obviously not a real person, but he is a well-known character about whom hundreds of books and movies and comics have been made, so it was important to capture his personality and energy in the book, just as if he’d been a living person. Most tie-in fiction is like that—you’re writing about existing fictional characters in an existing fictional universe, and you must treat them as if they’re alive and follow the rules of that universe. But you also add your own elements, your own lived experience, to the mix, and you must make the whole thing work and ring true to the reader. So, you’re always drawing on your own life, on people you know, places you’ve been, bits of information you’ve come across along the way.

Q: What lessons & emotions do you want readers to learn and feel after reading your books? 

A: Every novel seeks to create emotional responses in its readers, of course, but I think horror is the only one that tries to reach one emotion every time out. That emotion is fear, of course—you want the reader to be scared, or you’re doing it wrong. 

Beyond that, of course, I want to make the readers root for my characters, to worry when they’re in trouble and cheer when they succeed against the odds. Sometimes I want them to feel happy that the world is back on track, after whatever terrible events my characters have gone through.

As far as lessons go, I’d like readers to come away understanding people who aren’t like themselves—fiction, after all, lets us live alternate lives, if only for a little while. And in a lot of my work a major theme is that there is magic in the world, if you’ll only look for it.

Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to your work yet? The entertainment industry needs new ideas instead of remakes, reboots, sequels, prequels and spin-offs. 

A: I’ve had a couple of projects optioned, but nothing has been produced or even come close to production yet. I’m still hopeful, though. A character I created should be on the big screen in a couple of years, if current plans are held. James Gunn, who runs the DC Comics film and TV program, is planning to make a movie based on a comic series called The Authority. I didn’t create The Authority, but one of my characters, a flying Tibetan superhero named Swift, is an important part of the team, so she should be in the movie. It’s possible that another one, Flint, will be in it as well.

Q: Do you currently have any upcoming releases and are currently writing any new novels and short stories? If so, can you reveal any details?

A: I’m always working on something, or multiple somethings. In addition to Silverado Press, I’m involved with a transmedia company called Monster Forge Productions. We’re putting out comics and novels and eventually games, toys, and movie/TV projects—focusing mainly on monsters but encompassing all kinds of horror. The novel I’m working on now is a monster story, and it’ll be Monster Forge’s first novel. I’ve also written and edited some comics projects for Monster Forge. But I can’t tell you the title yet, because it pretty much gives away what the monster is.

Q: I saw on your website that your wife Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell is also an author. Would you ever write a novel with your wife? 

A: I’ve written two novels with her, and some short stories as well. Our first novel together was 7 SYKOS, which is a psychopath versus zombies’ story set in apocalyptic Phoenix, Arizona. We also wrote a tie-in novel to the video game Mafia III, called Plain of Jars. We’ll do more together, but we’re both super-busy right now with our solo projects and our day jobs.