FAQs

1.     How do you pronounce your name? 

Je-MOT-ta   E-mill

 2.     What’s the title of your debut novel? And what’s it about? 

Here’s the answer to both:

3.     Is THE BLACK QUEEN based on a true story?

Sort of. Not the murder itself or the events that play out after. But the premise of how the high school elects its homecoming queen is based on a real high school in Louisiana that a friend of mine attended.

4.     How long have you been writing? 

Off and on since I was 8 years old. I wrote a skit in the fourth grade as an assignment for my school’s “Just Say No” campaign. My teacher liked it so much that she let me cast my friends in it and we performed it in front of my class. After that, I became obsessed with writing stories and entertaining people. 

5.     Why do you like writing about murder and so much “dark stuff”?

I think it stems back to my love for the Scooby Doo cartoons as a kid. I took pride in figuring out who the villains were before the gang did. I also read a lot of Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. Once I got older, Agatha Christie books became some of my favorite reads. But I’ve always wanted to read stories like those but with characters that looked and talked like me, and who were dealing with some of the same issues that me and my friends had to deal with on a day-to-day basis.  

6.     Is THE BLACK QUEEN the first book you’ve written? 

No. I’ve written at least four other novels, self-published two. And I’ve started and abandoned countless others. 

7.     Can you read my manuscript?

I barely have time to read the books on my TBR list. Short answer: Sorry, no. 

8.     Why are you obsessed with the Real Housewives?

 They’re my guilty pleasure. Get over it. 

 9.     Has any of the Real Housewives inspired your work?

 I plead the fifth.