And So the Day of Pathological Oversharing Began…
I figured that, since you don’t know me from Adam, I should say something about me.
My name is Jonathan Hayes, I’m English, I live in New York City, where I work as a senior medical examiner and freelance writer. In forensic pathology, I’m particularly fascinated by drug-related and asphyxial deaths. As a freelance writer, I write mostly about food and travel, but also cover pretty much everything from video games to the occasional forensics-related thing. My work appears regularly in the NY Times, New York magazine, Food & Wine, Gourmet and a bunch of other places; there are links to my stuff (plus a zippy little photogallery of photos I’ve taken while to-ing and fro-ing on other people’s dime) on my webpage. I have a contributing editor position at Martha Stewart Living (actual cop joke: “Jonathan Hayes – he spends his days with the dead, and his nights with Martha Stewart Living.” Buh-duh-BUMP.).
It’s admittedly an odd mix, but I think that balance has kept me sane. When I wrote a bit about my life and some problems I had after 9⁄11, a friend of a friend, an EMS worker, complained that it was inappropriate that I should be doing the two; that notion still irritates me. Coming home after a long day at the morgue and turning my attention to, say, the pleasures of quince has the same sort of soothing, centering effect I’m told I’d get from yoga, if I managed to do it for more than a week. It took a while, but I’ve learned to remember that when you peer into the abyss, you turn your back on everything beautiful that’s outside of that abyss.
But enough Hallmark Moments [TM]! The reason Sarah invited me is because my first novel, Precious Blood, a forensic thriller, is about to be published by Harper Collins, arriving at bookstores near you on November the 6th; I myself may be arriving at bookstores near you sometime this autumn.
Right now, though, I can no longer ignore the siren call of Maury Povich and some foxy Playmate introducing “Caught on Tape! Shocking Security Camera Video!”
Oh, and one last thing: Libra, baby… Libra all the way.
