I thought it would be easier by book four, but it feels just like it did with the first book. It’s nerve-wracking to send out a new book. That part of me, the part that wants to keep making the book better, doesn’t go away after publication. I spend a lot of time working on those garbage parts.

Sometimes ideas feel amazing in my head, but aren’t amazing on the page. I teach seniors and send them off in the world and I know there are things they’ll be amazing at and things they’re not ready for. Since Jackaby was your first novel, what has the experience been like, seeing this series make its way into the world and to readers? She told me to write more because there was something there, maybe even something worth publishing.

My wife encouraged me after reading my Jackaby short story. But I never pursued a writing career: I was writing just because I really loved writing. I’ve been doing this for my entire life as a kid, I wrote stories for my seventh grade teacher. My son was just turning one I had a kid to take care of but not a lot of intellectual stimulation.ĭid you write regularly before beginning Jackaby? So those ideas were bouncing around in my head. Then a budget cut happened and, as a new teacher, I was first to go. I had been working with a science teacher, planning a class that combined a crime scene investigation course with a mythology course. I was right out of a teaching job that I loved, which had focused on mythology and writing. I was having one of those “those who can’t teach, do” moments. There’s a war in the final book and I knew I wanted to get to that. Eventually I determined that there would be four distinct stories happening along the way to a larger story. Pursuing publication made me consider where Jackaby and Abigail’s story would go, only then did any ideas for a series solidify. I wrote the first without thinking it would be a novel at all it was just a short story. Ritter spoke with PW about his inspiration for the books, the importance of representing different mythologies in literature, and the ways in which his work as a teacher affects his storytelling.ĭid you always plan Jackaby and Abigail’s story to be told in four books? Did you know where their story would end?įrom an early stage, I had four installments in mind.

A lover of stories and mythology, Ritter has published three books about Jackaby and Rook, with the fourth and final installment, The Dire King, to be released next month. High school English teacher William Ritter never expected his short story experiment about an eccentric paranormal detective named Jackaby and his clever assistant, Abigail Rook, to one day become his first published novel.

William ritter jackaby series