[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: Do you believe being a writer is in our DNA?
Chip Jacobs, Author/Journalist: I personally do for two reasons. One, there’s emerging science that says we pass down a lot more traits in our DNA than previously believed. I also just know it for myself because for many years of course I went by the last name of my dad. As I developed my interest and found out who I was, I realized I was much more aligned with my mom’s side of the family that were dancers, musicians, directors, writers. That’s really who I am inside. It just took me a long time.
When I was in school I always did really well in English but I was extremely curious and nosy (sometimes to my own detriment) and thought journalism was the end-all-be-all for my DNA but I was off a few chromosomes because fiction/nonfiction being more expansive was really just part of the story of my family. That’s what people did, told stories.
I had an uncle who was murdered unfortunately, a great uncle, brilliant guy [at] 16 years old was there at the beginning of Universal Pictures. He couldn’t help himself, telling stories, being interested and neither can I.
It was really a searing moment when I realized that’s who I am because my mom, who always wanted me to be a writer, had gone on back to her next life. I’m doing it for her. When I say my prayers I thank her every day for seeing the person I was meant to be.
Film Courage: You were the kid that always asked why?
Chip: I was the kid that asked a lot of whys, probably to the point my parents (and I said in an essay) were reaching for earplugs. I also got bored at school. I was the kid that would look out the window. I was a good student and attentive, but I did lose attention. I didn’t need to do advanced geometry to get a taste of what that would be like. I wanted more to transport myself into history or to see how Fitzgerald did it in The Great Gatsby but it took me a long time to figure out.
Film CourageL How did you realize you were a writer? You were curious but how did you realize that writing was for you?
Chip: I think I got a really good grade on an English exam like in fourth grade where other people weren’t doing so well and it just kind of worked to my mind. I always liked books. I loved…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
About:
Chip Jacobs is a bestselling author and journalist. His latest book is the Kafka-esque, true-crime caper The Darkest Glare: A True Story of Murder, Blackmail and Real Estate Greed in 1979 Los Angeles, which Kirkus Review praised as “engrossingly bizarre” and “entertaining.” Jacobs’ previous book was his debut novel, Arroyo, historical fiction set around construction of Pasadena’s mysterious Colorado Street Bridge in 1913. It was a Los Angeles Times bestseller, a CrimeReads most anticipated book, and a medalist at the Independent Publishers Book Awards. Before them were the biography Strange As It Seems: the Impossible Life of Gordon Zahler (an Indies Book of the Year finalist) and the environmental social histories The People’s Republic of Chemicals and the international bestselling Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles (the latter two with William J. Kelly). He has also contributed pieces to anthologies, among them the bestselling Los Angeles in the 1970s: Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine and Go Further: More Literary Appreciation of Power Pop. His prize-winning reporting has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Daily News, CNN, The New York Times, Bloomberg, L.A Weekly, among others.
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