"I think between the two of us, I would be the evil twin."

An interview with Jessica Slee

Writing can be a lonely business, but surely it’s less so for Jessica Slee. We first featured Jessica in one of our weekly link roundups back in March, and I’m thrilled to have her here for a Cold Caller interview.

We talked about her development as a writer, her recent successes, and what it’s like when your writing partner also happens to be your twin sister.

What got you hooked on writing and what keeps you going?

Like so many of us here, I was writing stories as young as elementary school—my second grade teacher had us write and illustrate a book. Each weekend, someone would take home a big case filled with paper, stickers, colored pencils, stencils, and everything else you would need, and the next Monday would get to read their book aloud to the class. This happened alphabetically, so I had months to wait until it was my turn. It was a very didactic story about adopting a cat, the only thing I could feasibly draw. But I was hooked, and I've never stopped writing stories.

I studied English Literature and Creative Writing at UNC-Chapel Hill, where I had the privilege of studying with writers like Daniel Wallace, Laurence Naumoff, and the late Randall Kenan. The program has produced stars like Sarah Dessen and M.L. Rio, and while it was an incredible environment to learn and grow, nobody tells you anything about the publishing industry! That's something we had to figure out all on our own.

I got more serious about writing after the pandemic, and finished a novel with another on the way. Short fiction has my heart, though, and it's what I'm trying to improve the most, right now.

The first day of class, Randall Kenan asked us all to come up to the whiteboard and draw a horse. Maybe there was some grand metaphor to it—he timed us, and my horse got progressively worse as the seconds ticked down—or there was a lesson to learn about finishing strong, or pacing ourselves. Maybe it was an icebreaker, so we could all get to know one another in the most low-stakes way possible. Maybe he just liked horses. (Now, if he'd said cats, I would at least have had some practice with that.)

What made you gravitate toward crime and mystery fiction?

From adventures and puzzles in a more cozy mystery novel to a thriller with explosions and bloody fight scenes, what’s not to love?

But beyond that, there is limitless potential. Crime and mystery fiction is capable of everything—the genre leaves no ground unturned, and can be effective in a story as short as a single sentence to a novel as long as L.A. Confidential (clocking in at 512 pages) or The Secret History (576 pages, uphill in the snow, both ways). It can be an outlet for escapism, a reflection of the harsher elements of our current reality, a portrayal of the past or a prediction of the future. I love what the genre continues to do.

I also grew up without cable television. There was only PBS, and whatever station The Simpsons was on, which doesn't take you very far. But there were always mountains of books—shelves overflowing with all the greats of classic literature, and then what felt like every popular thriller novel. There were all the Clive Cussler novels, for example, and everything Dan Brown ever wrote, and then another dozen of the most derivative copycats. I loved those books!

It's my deepest wish as a reader to find more books that have all the hallmarks of a classic blockbuster thriller, but populated overwhelmingly with women.

After our first exchange on Substack, I checked out your website and was surprised to discover that not only are you a writer but also have a twin sister who also writes fiction (and sometimes you write fiction together). What was your dynamic like growing up? Did one of you have to lure the other into writing, or did you share an interest from the start?

Anything one of us does, the other has to try. We're very similar, and have the same talents. She did follow me into the Creative Writing program at UNC—we actually ended up taking several writing classes together, and we were roommates in Old East, the oldest university building in the country. My twin sister Jennifer was more inclined to science growing up (and I followed her into science programs too, sometimes against my better judgment). Now, we've found out that we are better working together than each of us trying to write novels on our own. We like doing different things with short fiction, however—my work tends more towards noir, hers to the more fantastical. Her first published story, she wrote and submitted without ever telling me she was doing it! But now we edit one another's work as a matter of course. And we're very supportive of one another's writing, even though it would be easy to be competitive.

We have no other siblings, so it was all very normal to us to do everything together. We are identical twins, and would—and still do!—get mixed up constantly. And as children, when we weren't reading, we would amuse ourselves in strange ways—like practicing picking locks and studying magic tricks.

I think between the two of us, I would be the evil twin.

How do you and your sister decide which stories you want to tackle together? Do you pitch each other ideas?

We do! We're pitching each other ideas constantly!

I pitched my sister on a story about a high-powered event planner conscripted into helping her bridezilla client cover up a murder on her wedding day. She pitched me on a Y2K adventure story about a real piece of Marie Antoinette's furniture that was said to have magical properties (not real...but what if?). There is no real rhyme or reason to what we decide to write, only what we think has the best chance of actually being finished, and then what we think would be most likely to be published. We love contests, and have had great success with ones like the Killer Nashville's Claymore Awards (4x finalists, 1x winners) and Writer's Digest's Annual Writing Competition (something like...ten finalist/winner spots?), so a lot of what we pitch to one another typically slots into the framework for contest eligibility. We use them like a barometer to find out if an idea has promise. So we'll deliberately pitch short story ideas that we think you could tell in under four thousand words to be able to enter it into a contest later.

Likewise, we'll divvy up the responsibilities—whether it's editing, research, keeping the documents organized, etc. Most of the stories we've written together, she writes more of the first half and I write more of the conclusion. But the method is always changing, as we learn what works and what doesn't.

How does your writing process differ when you're writing with a partner versus when you're writing alone? Do you follow similar routines in both cases or are there things you change up?

I think it's a similar routine, writing alone versus writing together. But our process also probably sounds insane. We'll sit in the same room writing together, but text or email each other our opinions instead of talking so we have it all in writing to refer back to later. When we strongly disagree on something—whether it's a line, or a detail, and we both want to have our way, we'll instead cut it and find a third option so no one feels aggrieved. We tried doing in-line edits, but now we prefer doing a separate edit letter for each draft, as needed. We're not precious about any of it. Writing has always been collaborative for us, so the idea that the process should be a solitary venture is a largely foreign concept. I suppose if I had to compare it to a team sport, it would be something like rowing? There is someone at the oars, and then there is someone at the head of the boat, keeping the pace, shouting orders or encouragement or diatribes depending on what gets the best results.

I write on an ancient gaming laptop with the thickest keys you've ever seen. The whole thing even lights up. It's delightful. I can't write on one of those paper-thin laptops where you can barely feel the keys depress, I need them to make sound. My sister is not nearly so picky, so I guess there are still a few differences in our processes. There's more written on this subject in the Mystery Readers Journal Partners in Crime issue, which we also contributed an article to.

How do you balance writing with your day-to-day responsibilities (work, family, etc.)? Any advice for other writers trying to manage the juggling act of it all?

I wish I could say otherwise, but there is no balance. I'm still working on that myself. But I'll try to share some things that've worked for me. It's easy to get burned out, and I realized this was happening when I was treating reading books like homework to analyze and study, or only picking books that I thought would make good comp titles. I got far more out of it when I picked random things for the joy of it and read more outside of my genre—whether it's nonfiction or something fun and unserious. Dealing with burnout means that you can do more with the time you have to write, and what you do write will probably end up being better for it.

Jennifer adds that she cannot be one of those people that writes two thousand words every day, or tries to hold themselves to that standard. It can be easy to get discouraged and fall behind, which can make you feel more discouraged! Instead, she says rather than trying to write every day, try getting a little closer to your goals every day. Sometimes that looks like writing, or doing research, or drafting queries, or doing nothing to let yourself recharge and come back stronger tomorrow.

What current projects are you working on that you're excited about most?

Jennifer has a story in the May/June issue of The Saturday Evening Post, that just launched last month.

It's a Western that takes place in a Nevada silver-mining town, about a band of stagecoach robbers whose lieutenant is persuaded into betraying their leader on the eve of their last big run on the bank. It can be read online for free here.

We are working on short fiction that covers a pretty wide gamut, from more comedic mysteries to darker noir. And we are finishing up a novel that centers a group of virtuosic classical musicians working on a new concerto themed around figures from the French Revolution, and what happens when the musicians' lives begin to echo those of the subjects they portray, including a grisly murder. The manuscript won the Best Literary Claymore Award and the Colorado Gold Rush Award for Best Mystery/Thriller. In addition, I have short fiction forthcoming from Punk Noir. I hope we have even more good news to share with you soon.

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Jessica Slee studied English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a Claymore Award Winner, and in 2022 she was longlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger and the First Pages Prize. She was recognized in the Honor Roll of The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024 and her work appears in Punk Noir and Shotgun Honey Presents: Thicker Than Water. For more, visit sleesquared.com.