Dr Leah Giarratano interview: delving into a criminal mind

I can’t imagine the strength it takes to work with criminals, not to mention treating their victims. I’ve read about the characters who investigate these crimes, trying to understand these bad guys in crime novel after crime novel, but Dr Leah Giarratano is the first author I’ve found who works with criminals  and helps their victims in real life.

She is an expert in psychological trauma, sex offences and psychopathology and has worked in psychiatric hospitals, the defence force and our jail systems with offenders in an effort to understand them. Dr Giarratano has also ventured into TV on Beyond the Darklands, a show that focuses on a particular criminal, with Dr Giarratano providing insight into their psyche.

Here, she talks about what it means to have writing as a therapeutic outlet for the horrors she deals with in her day job, as well as her beloved Jill Jackson series, and her YA series, Disharmony.

What are you reading right now?

I’d like to say fiction, but I’m in the middle of being a psychologist at the moment, and it’s mostly stuff about treating complex trauma. I take it in turns being a writer and a psychologist.

What compelled you to start writing your Jill Jackson series? Or rather, what made you decide to take that final step into writing your first book?
I’d just finished my doctoral placement studying psychopaths at the Acute Crisis Management Unit at Long Bay gaol. This was following years of working with victims of psychological trauma, and I pretty much vomited out my first scene. I must admit, it was pretty violent. The crime series was kind of cathartic – a way of processing the things I’ve worked with as a clinical psychologist.

You’ve said that writing has proven to be a therapeutic release for you from your day job – can you elaborate on what that release means to you?

My field of psychology can have a high burn out rate. We help people come to terms with some of the most unimaginable things that can happen to people: rape, abuse, war, etc. When I wrote about these things in the Jill Jackson series it transfigured some of my terrible true memories into fiction, and each book kind of ‘processed’ some of these memories.

What was the inspiration for Jill?

I’ve met many brave survivors of child trauma. Jill is like an amalgamation, a conglomeration of all of them, transformed into a kickarse cop.

Why was essential for you to add to her so that she stands out in this genre?

Well, I needed a strong survivor to really make sure the baddies in my books copped it hard! Unfortunately, the justice system in real life doesn’t always deliver that way.

You also have a YA series – the Disharmony series – which is such a different genre and age range to be writing for. What prompted you to begin writing it?

I always wanted to write a YA urban fantasy series – way before crime fiction – but my mind was too full of the darkness of my day job to inflict that upon kids. As it is, Disharmony is still full of psychopaths and daemons.

What was easiest and most difficult in the switch from adult crime to YA?

The easiest was being able to immerse myself in a realm where warlocks and ninja assassins coexist with gangster gypsy kings and juvenile delinquents. The hardest was not swearing in every line, as I did in the crime series.

What have you learned about yourself as a writer in these two different genres?

I’ve learned to take my time with my next manuscript. Seven novels in as many years was hardcore, man, especially given I’m not giving up being a psychologist, as that’s a pretty cool career too.

What do you think the genre offers adult readers?
Great YA offers adult readers everything any novel does, transportation to another realm, where the genre matters not a jot.

What’s in store for you in 2015?

Farout. I’m training a couple of hundred mental health professionals in strategies to treat psychological trauma; I’m updating some trauma texts I wrote for clinicians; I’m buying a beach house, and I’m making notes for my next fiction manuscript: crime, as I keep being called back to it.

To learn more about her books, click here. 

Could you work with criminals and then write about them? What do you think of Leah’s Jill Jackson series? Or her Disharmony series, I’d love to know!