Raised on Bainbridge Island, a 40-minute ferry ride due west of Seattle on Puget Sound, Jim’s rain-soaked prose has always been inspired by the chill on his nose and the cold earth under his toes.
He finds it easy to be drawn to the dark side of human nature in his writing when he’s surrounded by so much of the same darkness in the nature around him — rain, gloom, trees, shadows and Starbucks, to cite just a few examples — that helped the Pacific Northwest gain notoriety as the serial-killer capital of the United States.
He attended a
Seventh-day Adventist boarding school in the heart of Gary Ridgway country (when the Green River Killer was active, yet) and went to college in the same city in which Kenneth Bianchi plied his trade after fleeing L.A. in the wake of the Hillside Strangler slayings.
Jim’s desire to be a writer took him into journalism, and he’s been a reporter and editor for Pacific Northwest newspapers for 22 years. Currently the night and weekend news editor at the Kitsap Sun in Bremerton, he misses the writing side of his life and is looking to channel his creative desires into book-length projects.
Since November 2008 (not coincidentally, about the time his paper announced its latest round of layoffs), he’s been pouring his free time into developing a collection of true-crime stories about people who have committed one big crime in their lives — including murder — got caught, did their time, cleaned up their lives and sought absolution through pardons and clemency from the Washington state governor. More recently, he’s been working on a suspense novel set in the Puget Sound and a handful of short stories.
He takes his inspiration from two local mentors: Fellow Bainbridge Islander Jack Olsen befriended Jim during Jim’s days as a reporter at the island newspaper and encouraged his still-unformed dreams; and in more recent years, South Kitsap resident Gregg Olsen has been a great friend and motivator.
Jim is 44 years old. Single with no children, he lives with a cat named Lucy in a duplex that’s packed halfway to the ceiling with true-crime and mystery paperbacks. His favorite authors are Stephen King, Stephen Dobyns, Jack Olsen, Ann Rule, C.J. Box and Tom Perrotta. But if he had to pick one book to take to a desert island, it would probably be his all-time favorite from childhood, The Bounty Trilogy by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.
Then, as now, the story is the thing.
[…] About Jim […]
Hey, Jim, in your “About Jim” section you neglected to mention Ted Bundy snagged a victim from your college campus. Gotta keep that reputation alive!
If you are still looking for critiques on your writing, I’m interested.
Your posts are so damned entertaining! Thanks!
Wow,
Never heard of anyone else interested in telling the world about this group! My husband is still in the fierce battle just to be allowed to APPL,Y to appear at a pardons board hearing…he’s a great story all on his own, one of those kids who is rotting in prison, whose only hope is a pardon. No prior felonies, just a junkyard dog kid who fell for the oldest “I know where an unguarded safe full of money is sitting just waiting for us to go get it” trap in the world, and is paying for it with back to back life without parole sentences, after over two decades.
Anyhow, thanks for wanting to publicize that there truly are men in prison who could save the public money and fear by being released, as this group has a recidivism rate of 1-2 percent. Instead, people believe that letting a mid-range criminal free will keep them safe. I hope you move on to educate the public about the truth that not all murders are created equally.
Hi, I have a story that will fill a whole book for you. And my child has a pardons board hearing coming up. I’d like to talk with you about the pardons board. And, I’d like to talk to you about a book, it’s quite a tale. Please contact me. honeybear8645@yahoo.com. I am in Bellingham, Wa.
I live in Olympia and back in 1983 I was able to sit in on some of the trial of Jeanette Murphy. I was a young mother of 2 and was facinated by the judical systems with thoughts of becoming a legal advocate for women in abusive legal situations. I couldn’t get my head around the thought of a daughter plotting and
killing her parents. In the beginning I thought maybe she wasn’t guilty, but everything pointed to Jeanette as the killer. I couldn’t get her out of my head but over the years with so much going on in my own life hadn’t thought about her. The other day I was wondering about what might have happened to Jeanette, I figured she was still in prison. What a tragedy, I think the Jeanette Murphy would make a great book. I wish you well and good luck. Oh, by the way 600 hours of Edward is a good book, thanks for mentioning it in your article.We have so many wonderful authors from the Pacific Northwest. I will be the first group that will be in line to buy the book about Jeanette Murphy and her family, also, what happened to her sister Natasha. Candy Sapp
Hey jim.
my name is jasmine alyssia teafatiller…my biological mother is patricia teafatiller. i came across your post about my mothers clemency court date..i thought it was very interesting how once again she made herself a victim when in reality shes just a druggie who was to messed up to realise that my dad loved his daughters an she couldnt deal with it so her thought process was that since she couldnt have him he couldnt have us… he was never cheating on her he didnt meet my step mom until years later.. i almost died that night. i was a quarter of an inch away from a severed jugular vien.. if you want a real story ill give you her story.
Hi Jim,
I didn’t see a “contact Jim” button, so I’m hoping you’ll receive this. Recently you talked about “glide” in your comment in a TKZ post. Loved that term. I’ll be teaching an editing workshop in a couple of weeks at the Flathead River Writers Conference in Montana. With your permission and credit to you, I’d like to use the term. You went into an explanation about it and cited some great examples of “glide,” but unfortunately I can’t locate that particular post.
Always enjoy your comments on TKZ.
Thanks for the help,
Debbie Burke
writer1@montanasky.net