Interview with Author Joyce Yarrow
“She’s got everything she needs,
She’s an artist, she don’t look back.
She can take the dark out of the nighttime
And paint the daytime black.” — Bob Dylan
Dylan’s lyrics could be about Joyce Yarrow, a product of Brooklyn now in the Seattle area by way of Southern California.
She’s a singer/songwriter and poet whose work has evolved to prose with a focus on a genre previously associated with names like Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, and John D. MacDonald.
She can take her readers from the darkness of an underground Russian prison cell to the bright daylight of the streets of New York with style, intrigue, and a gritty edge that keeps them locked into the story.
In Jo Epstein, she has created a leading character that conjures up memories of Sam Spade, Mike Hammer, and Kay Scarpetta all rolled into one. Yarrow can turn a phrase, spin a yarn, and come up with a street-smart metaphor that’s both humorous and relevant to the situation it describes. Epstein can kick your teeth in and leave you with an extemporaneous haiku to ponder while you nurse your wounds.
With the latest in the Jo Epstein series about to hit the streets and the first one coming out in a Kindle version, we thought it would be a good time to get to know her creator a bit better.
Please give us a brief bio of yourself. What are some of the things you’ve done since school?
I grew up in the Southeast Bronx, where being observant was a prerequisite for survival. I think this vigilance on my part gave me some foundational skills as a writer at an early age – I became a people watcher out of necessity.
I started writing songs at the age of 13, right before I entered the High School of Music and Art. After graduating I continued to write both music and poetry, performing as a singer/songwriter in New York, California, and even in Ireland. In those days you could pay your rent playing music in Central Park and passing the hat.
After I moved to California I became interested in writing screenplays and this led me to enrolling in Antioch College L.A. where I earned a combined degree in music and communications. I found I could earn my living as a writer in a number of ways and that was very exciting. But L.A. in those days was a bit too commercial for my taste—art was a dirty word and everything was “product”—so in the late ‘80s my husband Gary and I moved to Seattle to start a family. I’m so glad we did. We have a 20-year-old son who we adore and I love both the music and the writing scene here.
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