Sibyl Avery Jackson

 

Sibyl Avery Jackson has more than twenty years experience as a writer, editor, publicist for television and radio, as well as a researcher/writer/editor for corporate executives and a local politician. She has also edited and published company newsletters, magazines, and written grant proposals. It was through Sibyl's position as spokesperson for one of the country's largest wireless service providers--during the time when the first cellular phone/brain cancer link became a national issue--that inspired the writing of Degree of Caution. She is acknowledged in LAUNCHING THE WAR ON POVERTY: An Oral History by Michael L. Gillette, for her contributions as a researcher/editor while working in the oral history program at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas. Sibyl has a B.A. degree in English from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Alfred, and their family, where she is currently at work on a new "Special Agent Monica Sinclair" novel.

 

*DEGREE OF CAUTION is Nominated by the African American Authors Guild for Best Mystery for 2002 (See the Nominees)

 

"In her novel Degree of Caution, Ms Jackson has shown a mastery of storytelling that makes for a gripping and compelling story. From the cover art to the final page, she manages to craft a tale that made me as a reader stop and think over the chance of this being more truth than fiction- if not already, then some day in the not too distant future." Reviewed by Rick Mohr

 

Pageonelit.com: Where did you grow up and was reading and writing a part of your life? Who were your earliest influences and why?

Sibyl Avery Jackson: I was born in Virginia and spent the earlier part of my life in Amherst, Virginia; Tennessee, North Carolina, and Seattle Washington, before moving to Houston, Texas, when I was a teenager. No, I wasn't an ‘army brat.' My father worked in Public Health before he established his medical practice in Houston. Absolutely, reading and writing were a part of my life. My mother was an educator who enrolled my siblings and me in the reading program each summer at the local library. You know the one: Read fifteen to twenty books, get a certificate. My mother made sure we read at least one hour a day. Each time I opened a book, I was transported to someplace new and exciting, each reading experience made a lasting impression. It also helped that I had quite an imagination as a kid.

 

Pageonelit.com:Why do you write?

Sibyl Avery Jackson: Because I cannot not write. I love the art of storytelling, of creating a work that is a part of me that can be shared with others.

 

Pageonelit.com:Who is Monica Sinclair? How much of Sibyl Avery Jackson is in this character?

Sibyl Avery Jackson: She's one tough cookie, that FBI Special Agent Monica Sinclair. I just enjoy her so! She's a connoisseur of disguise and a bonafide risk taker. She is tenacious as she is tender and her heart and soul are a match for her considerable intellect. I nurture my adventurous side through her, though I'm not as gutsy as she is! When Monica's investigating a case, she works outside the box, lives life on the edge and fears no one. Yet when it comes to confronting her own personal issues, she does not apply the same principles. Instead, she has spent decades building an impenetrable wall around herself that not even she dares to crash through.

 

Pageonelit.com:Tell us about your book DEGREE OF CAUTION. Why did you write this book?

Sibyl Avery Jackson: DEGREE OF CAUTION centers on an FBI investigation of a wireless company that conspires to hide the truth about a deadly communications device. The cellular phone/brain cancer controversy. The subplot focuses on the historical social issue of Virginia's anti-miscegenenation law--that prohibited interracial marriages--and the effects that law had on Sinclair's family.

For three years, I was spokesperson for one of the largest cellular-service providers in the nation. At the time the first cell phone lawsuit made national news, I dismissed it as just another "conspiracy theory" until I saw just how serious the public and the industry took it. All of a sudden, the issue dominated every media outlet--television, radio, and print. Cellular stock dropped tremendously, wireless customers drastically cut back on their cell phone usage, and Congress demanded answers. The fastest-growing industry in history, at the time, took a nosedive! I honestly thought either Grisham or Robin Cook would be the first to break out with a book on the subject. After a couple/three years of the issue simmering on the back burner and none of the other authors stepped forward, that's when I said to myself, "Hey, I can do this."

I interjected the anti-miscegenation subplot because I wanted to add more depth to the book. Because I was born in Virginia and my mother's side of the family is from there, the subject has always interested me. It's one of those unspoken, historical social issues that's been swept under the rug. The fact that people in Virginia were prohibited from marrying outside their race before 1967, when the law was overturned in the state (U.S. Supreme Court Decision: Loving v Virginia), is a concept I can't wrap my mind around. Even though members of my own family were affected by this law. What's portrayed in DEGREE OF CAUTION is one of the extreme effects the anti-miscegenation law has on a particular family whose parents are African-American and Jewish.

 

Pageonelit.com:You were a spokeswoman for Houston Cellular when the first cellular phone/brain cancer lawsuit made national headlines. What did you know from your experience that help write DEGREE OF CAUTION? What did you have to research? Can cell phones cause brain cancer?

Sibyl Avery Jackson: I knew this was an issue of huge concern to a vast number of people, including those within the industry. Reporters hounded us daily; frantic customers flooded the phone lines with requests to cancel contracts or to swap handheld phones for mounted car phones; there were some customers who wanted to know if they should schedule doctors appointments; and our own employees whispered among themselves. As soon as one fire was out, another set of flames ignited. Reflecting back on it now, I guess we operated pretty much in a crisis-management mode for a long time.

When I left the company to begin developing the book, it helped that I had either saved numerous articles on the subject or knew which daily newspapers and/or industry trade magazines had tracked the issue. I also knew which key members of Congress to monitor and which government and health agencies/organizations to contact for information. For the first time, I had a more balanced look at the research out there, not just what had been handed down to me from within the industry. And as I sifted through it all, what got my engine racing was that I couldn't find any reference to a study that had used human participants. Words like "models of human heads" or "laboratory rats" were synonymous with most of them.

I also learned that scientists around the world, including Israel, U.K, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Scandinavia, were not only trying to determine whether or not electromagnetic rays from cell phones caused brain cancer, but whether they interfered with DNA structure (especially in children whose neurological systems are still developing); produced onset adult leukemia or other blood diseases; caused a rare form of eye cancer or memory loss; and many other health risks. All of this chilled me to the bone.

Think about these startling facts:

Currently, there are more than 137 million U.S. subscribers, several hundred million worldwide.(Cellular Technology Industry Association)

According to the Boston-based consulting firm Yankee Group, 34 percent of youth ages 13 to 24 have cell phones compared to 50 percent of the general population. By 2003, the company predicts that more than half of teenagers and adults in the country will have cell phones. By 2006, young people will outpace the rest of society 75 percent versus 68 percent.

A few of the health agencies/organizations studying the issue include the FDA, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, World Health Organization, and many others.

As early as the 1990s, some cellular phone manufacturers filed patents for devices that would protect users from radiation emitted from cell phones. (Cnn.com) (Why file patents for protective devices from something you claim is not harmful? This doesn't make sense to me.)

Dr. George Carlo, lead scientist who headed the industry-backed study for more than six years, left the study once his research detected cell phone health risks. (Why does the industry reject his findings?)

During the last few years, there were numerous liability lawsuits filed against the cellular industry, the largest of which--$800 million--was filed in 2000 by a Baltimore neurologist, Dr. Christopher Newman, who claims his brain tumor resulted from his regular use of cell phones. (News.cnet.com)

One incident that convinced me I was on to something occurred during the drafting of DEGREE OF CAUTION when I went to interview a leading epidemiologist. Just after I'd taken out my pad and pencil, fired off a couple of questions about the cell phone/brain cancer controversy and pressed PLAY on my tape recorder, the doctor immediately instructed me to turn it off and emphatically stated that he/she would not be a part of "mass hysteria." (Notice I'm not mentioning names, here.) I was basically told that no reputable person in the medical community gave credence to the claim, that the medical conditions I'd just asked about--brain cancer, headaches, memory loss, DNA interference--were all products of the public's imagination. Basically, I was laughed right out of there. To make a long story short, after leaving Dr. #1's office, I was stopped in the hallway by Dr. #2, who asked me if I wanted to take a look at the proposal that had been sent to various doctors/scientists requesting their participation in a major study on the subject. (Dr. #2 had received such a copy. I suspect Dr. #1 had, as well.) A few days later, I received the information in the mail. And you know what? Some of the exact questions I'd sought answers to just days before were going to be researched in this particular study. Since that time, I've talked to several medical specialists--my father is a retired surgeon, so I have access to more than a few--who've admitted there may be a link.

The bottom line is, I don't believe we'll know exactly what we're dealing with for a very long time. Until then, one word comes to mind: tobacco.

 

Pageonelit.com:What makes a good mystery? What do you feel sets your book apart from others in the genre and why?

Sibyl Avery Jackson: A compelling plot with enough conflict and tension, believable characters with real-life issues, and dialogue that advances the story. I believe DEGREE OF CAUTION has all of these components. Also, in developing Monica Sinclair as a series character, I believed that in order for readers to establish kinship with her and want to spend time with her in future books, they needed to understand why she is the way she is and what made her life so unbalanced.

Pageonelit.com: In another interview you said, 'There is some measure of insecurity in all of us and, if we don't overcome whatever it is--no matter how slight--we just may allow it to dictate the course of our life's journey.' Please explain and how this statement relates to your story and characters in DEGREE OF CAUTION.

Sibyl Avery Jackson: I believe that who we are, what motivates us, what we believe about ourselves--whether true or imagined--is spurred by something that happens to or within our families. With Monica Sinclair, how she views herself began with Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws that separated her family and set the tone for the person she would become 30-something years later: An accomplished professional whose personal life is totally screwed up by her resentment towards her white-looking brother, misguided anger towards her Jewish father, and her own feelings of low, self worth she attributes to her ‘blackness.'

The same premise applies to Victor and Gerald Conti, the Italian brothers who head Bayou City Wireless and the Conti Empire, though their circumstances are different.

 

Pageonelit.com: What has been your feedback from readers? What do they say to you about their interpretations of your books?

Sibyl Avery Jackson: Most say before using their cell phones now, they think of DEGREE OF CAUTION. Oops! No, seriously, DEGREE spent 15 consecutive weeks on Cushcity.com's bestsellers list. In addition to that, the book has been well-received by a wide audience of readers, which was my goal from the beginning. One of the greatest thrills for me came earlier this year when I attended Meharry Medical College's Annual Book Fair in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Pageonelit.com: Who are your favorite writers and why?

Sibyl Avery Jackson: I have deep respect for a number of authors: Pat Conroy for his eloquent narrative of the South; Tananarive Due--she blows me away with her imagination; Anita Bunkley for her detailed African-American historical fiction; Jack Higgins, James Patterson, and Patricia Cornwell for consistency in their series characters; and Judith McNaught for her historical Romance novels. Maya Angelou is my absolute favorite poet.

 

Pageonelit.com: What's next?

Sibyl Avery Jackson: I'm currently at work on the latest "FBI Special Agent Monica Sinclair" adventure. After that, at least three others. I have a couple of other exciting projects in the works, but I'm not quite ready to discuss them.

 

Pageonelit.com: What was the last book you read?

Sibyl Avery Jackson: I read at least two books a month. The last novel I read was THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS by Anne Rice which beautifully explores pre-Civil War placage, another unspoken historical social issue. Before that, THE EMPEROR OF OCEAN PARK by Stephen Carter.

 

Pageonelit.com: Do you have any hobbies? What are they? How do they enhance your writing.

Sibyl Avery Jackson: I love shopping for antiques, preferably English and French furniture. I also have a passion for antique cars. I'm the proud owner of a fiery red, convertible roadster that is more than 30 years old! Reading and traveling also top my list of hobbies. I read for two reasons: escapism and research. When I have a couple of hours to myself, there's nothing more relaxing than reading a great novel. Also, when I need a break from drafting a new book, I read the works of authors of the same genre as mine. Some writers say they don't like to do that because it interferes with their "voice." To me, it's a great reminder of how a finished, professional work is supposed to read. Therefore, once I return to my own writing, I can easily spot fragments, lack of conflict and tension, dialogue that rambles, and other problem areas that need to be fine tuned.

I also love to travel and talk to people whose lives and ways of living are different from mine. It expands my mind and keeps me focused on the fact that the world is made up of all kinds of people. My work reflects that. That's why the nationality of my characters are diverse in DEGREE OF CAUTION--Jewish, Italian, Native American, Puerto Rican and African American--and will continue to be diverse in future works.