The movement to shop locally and eat locally has gotten easier and easier in Nashville, with new shops and restaurants flooding into this great city. Why not read locally as well?

You could get started with You Only Die Twice, a new book written by a local Nashville author under the pen name Jessie Diamond. “It is obvious as people read the book that it is a pen name,” said Diamond. “I was a little concerned, being a new state employee in a conservative state. But also, I’ve written a crime drama pilot and the detective is Jessie Diamond. So I thought the pen name would be a cool way to promote both.”

Diamond got into writing through TV scripts. “I don’t want to alienate book-lovers who are purists about books but my first love is TV,” she said with a laugh. “I would write little plays based on my favorite TV shows. From there I started writing film scripts.”

Diamond has had more than a few successes with her film and TV scripts. “One of the highlights of my life was getting my script read years ago when people would read you without an agent. I was read by Michelle Pfeiffer’s company and Jodie Foster’s company.” She also won the pitch contest at the Nashville Film Festival in 2010, and “did very well in some online contests with the crime drama pilot and with a sitcom.”

Things are different now, Diamond explained: “It’s hard to get read by anybody now without an agent and it’s hard to get an agent because of some lawsuits that started in the 90s.”

The changing industry led Diamond to her new preferred medium- novels. “It was getting harder and harder to get my scripts read, even though I was doing well online. I wanted a new project and thought I’d do a novel.”

So Diamond wrote You Only Die Twice, which she describes as a “mystery thriller meets Mother Goose with a touch of The Brothers Grimm and Lord Byron.”

While You Only Die Twice features a lesbian protagonist, it is not the focal point of the plot. “The book is not really about sexuality,” said Diamond. “There is a romance and it’s obvious the main character is a lesbian, but it’s a world where nobody cares. It’s all about the mystery.”

Her influence from this character comes from her first love. “I got the idea a little bit from Rob Tapert, who created Xena: Warrior Princess,” she explained. “That character had all the trademarks of the action and sci-fi genre, as though it was written for a guy. It’s not about any coming out experience. What informs the character is her father is a serial killer and she’s an FBI agent.”

Diamond had a bit of a dilemma when deciding how to publish the book. “I was read by some gay and lesbian publishers, but I sort of wanted to go mainstream,” she said. “Where authors ought to go as far as marketing is sort of a question in lesbian publishing right now. Do you try to go mainstream or do you just target the lesbian and gay audience?”

“Lesbians tend to seek out things,” she said about her thought process. “But I think lesbians are open not just to stories specifically about gay or lesbian issues, but other stories as well.”

Ultimately, Diamond decided to self-publish the book using Amazon.com and Smashwords.com. “So far so good,” she said with a humble chuckle. “Honestly, the novel has done quite well! I was amazed. I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback.”

You Only Die Twice is available in paperback and for Kindle at Amazon and in a host of eBook formats at Smashwords