Jason M. Kays is represented by Pump Up Your Book Promotion, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book promotion.

Jason M. Kays is an intellectual property attorney with fifteen years experience in both information technology and entertainment law. He is an accomplished jazz trumpet player, and his passion has always been music, technology, and convergence of the two in today's digital age.

Kays is also the author of a new technological crime thriller, Virtual Vice, which has been described as “a treat for all crime thriller buffs and for anyone who just loves a well-written book.”

We interviewed Kays to find out more about his latest release and his life as a published author.

Thank you for this interview, Mr. Kays.  Can you tell us a little about yourself and how long you’ve been writing?

I grew up in a small logging town ninety miles northwest of Seattle, Washington.  My parents and many in my immediate family — aunts, uncles a younger sister — are teachers, so there was always an emphasis placed on education as a lifelong continuing process. I began writing creatively in the fourth grade — short horror stories. In the fifth and sixth grades I tried my hand at science fiction, but wasn't my cup of tea. I enjoyed English Lit and writing courses during my high school and college years. I was offered a fellowship to work on my doctorate in English Lit, but had already accepted a seat in law school.

Following a judicial clerkship that involved a good deal of research and writing, I practiced appellate work for a year. This work was very taxing, as it involved representation of inmates in maximum security prisons. It led to my introduction to the Copycat Killer, Veronica Compton, in the famous Hillside Strangler case. She had been unfairly and repeatedly denied a parolability hearing for political reasons. I was able to both secure a hearing and win her release, garnering some national press exposure in the process. The notoriety and my local reputation attracted the attention of a nationally known Rock and Roll promoter. Since I've always been more of a frustrated jazz artist than lawyer, I jumped at the opportunity to collaborate with him in his return to Seattle from Texas during the peak of Grunge music's popularity. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains are all Seattle area artists.

It was during my seven years as an entertainment attorney that a series of dramatic and colorful events and people inspired various storylines. Insight into the inner, often mob-connected, workings of the entertainment industry was dispiriting but fascinating. Exposure to that world necessarily entails exposure to the flesh and drug peddlers. Representatives from both camps were at saturation levels. The cocktail of youth, celebrity, sex, drugs and money results in excesses of epic proportion. Great fodder for fiction.

Article Author: Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotion, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book promotion for authors.

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