(classical Indian music) - [Jim] A local group has been performing traditional dances for decades, but they're still taking some risks to bring it to a broader audience.

- So I don't know what people would think, we had no idea.

But people really loved it.

- [Jim] We meet popular fantasy author V.E.

Schwab, who while still a student, began her first novel at a local coffee house.

- Now I'm 23 books in and it's pretty surreal to be back where it all started.

- [Jim] The strange story of Pearl Curran.

She didn't take credit for her books, saying she just took dictation from the spirit world.

- She published four novels in the 1920s, a ghost did.

She would tell her the stories, Pearl would write them down.

- [Jim] And why playing around can be serious business when it comes to helping kids.

It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(cheerful music) (cheerful music continues) (cheerful music continues) (cheerful music continues) I'm Jim Kirchherr and we're gonna start off with a little dance.

Well I'm not, thankfully.

No, Brooke Butler's story though is about a dance group.

In fact, one of our viewers told us about them and it turns out they've been around for decades now.

And it was all started, I think like a lot of groups like theirs, to keep alive the traditions of the old country.

(classical Indian music) - Well, if I described everything that makes the dance form what it is, I would say captivating because all the different aspects of it, eye movements, the hand movements, the footwork, everything kind of comes together to make it a very captivating experience for the audience that watches it.

- [Brooke] For 46 years, Dances of India has been captivating audiences around the St. Louis community.

But if you're like me, you didn't even know we had a classical Indian dance company.

After all, the Midwest isn't typically known for this intricate dance style with ornate costumes set to interpret ancient Eastern folklore.

But that's exactly why the Prem family started what is now one of the oldest classical Indian dance companies in the country.

- I started dancing at the age of five when I was in India.

- [Brooke] Asha Prem immigrated from India to St. Louis in 1976, as her late husband, who went by Dr. Prem, was a research scientist at Washington University.

It didn't take them long to realize that not only was St. Louis lacking Indian dance companies, most people didn't even know what it was.

- Because they would think it is Native American art or Bollywood, not even Bollywood, it was not there at that time, it was belly dancing.

So I just wanted to change that image.

So my husband and myself, we started a dance school and named it Dances of India because no one would understand if I just called it by the Indian name.

- [Brooke] The Indian name being Bharatnatyam, which is the classical form.

And it is important to acknowledge the various styles of Indian dance, but the Prems' main objective was just to raise awareness.

A major help in bridging the gap between Eastern and Eastern cultures was through Asha's very first student, Theckla Mehta, who is a mid-westerner, but married a man from India.

- I want to tell you how amazing it was for me, a little Midwestern girl, to learn about these dances, to wrap yourself in silk, put jewels everywhere, and makeup and then dance these stories where you're the consort of Gods.

You know, how incredible is that?

You know, you just leave yourself, you leave reality and you jump into these wonderful fanciful stories.

And maybe that was originally the goal.

I don't know.

- [Brooke] Theckla began designing the costumes and set pieces in addition to dancing herself along with her three daughters.

And then eventually, she started choreographing and writing the performances alongside Asha's daughter Nartana Prem.

- So the thing is, I started so young, I was five years old when I started dancing, I started learning dance.

So I don't even remember, I don't think I had much of an option whether or not to do it, I think that's something I was gonna do.

But never in my wildest dreams though I would pour any energy into it.

You know, after I graduated from high school, that was the last thing on my mind.

- [Brooke] But as Nartana is a professional writer, she started helping her family write grants for the dance company.

And so when her father passed in 2014, it was kind of a natural transition for her to take over those duties.

- Hi, good evening everyone.

So we have lots of dancers waiting to dance for you too.

And let me tell you first that classical Indian dance, the kind we do is called Bharatanatyam, and this has its origins- - [Brooke] This performance at Intersect Arts Center was for a night of India that included various aspects of Indian culture.

The dance company performs year round for more educational programs like at schools, libraries, nursing homes.

But their main annual performance is around Diwali, the biggest Indian holiday.

For the first half of the program, Asha's students demonstrate their skills in classical Indian dance and the second half is when Nartana and Theckla get to showcase a more experimental type of dance drama through their original scripted stories.

- [Intercom] I'm so glad to see you all.

- These dramas are fully narrated so that the Western audience understands the nuances of what's going on in these stories.

A lot of the Indian stories are very complex.

And so you don't have to know those stories because we're gonna tell it to you and we're going to tell it to you in dance and drama.

- [Intercom] One day, Agni got fire and self pity.

You'll see why I say self pity soon.

Was wandering through the universe alone.

- [Nartana] I was in the car listening to classical music and I heard Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and I love that piece.

So I thought, "Why not do a rhapsody for the blue gods?"

So there are a couple of deities in Hinduism which have blue skin, they're shown as having blue skin.

So I don't know what people would think, we had no idea.

But people really loved it.

- [Brooke] Since then, they've combined other eastern and western ideas, such as "Cinderella" and even "The Nutcracker," with the original musical composition but choreographed with Indian dance.

And this melting of cultures was very intentional to ensure audiences were engaged enough to gain an understanding of Indian culture.

- [Nartana] To show that level of nuanced expression is not something you do in ballet or in other Western styles of dance.

But that reveals a lot about the culture, that emotion, the stories, how important the legends are and dance brings them to life in a way that's very immediate.

And I was thinking about this too, like on social media now or TikTok, people love watching other people dance.

Maybe that's what makes it so special is that it is something that is just very primal in many ways.

It's just your body and ideally your heart, your mind, your spirit altogether.

There's something very magical about it.

It's a neat way to transmit your culture.

- We've got a couple of stories now about authors.

One who writes about the weird and supernatural and the other who apparently lived it, or so she said.

Veronica Mohesky has the story of the St. Louis woman who became famous in her day as, well, let's say a ghostwriter.

And who 107 years ago made a rather startling announcement.

(typewriter clacking) - [Veronica] This week in history in 1916, a peculiar adoption made it into the St. Louis newspapers.

A woman named Pearl Curran adopted a child because her Ouija board told her to.

But this wasn't Pearl's first time in the headlines.

In the 1910s, Pearl Curran was gaining fame in the St. Louis region and nationally for her books, short stories and poems.

But according to Pearl, she wasn't writing them, a ghost was.

- Well, when she started to use it, they started to get these very clear messages that came through from a ghost who said her name was Patience Worth.

- [Veronica] This is Troy Taylor, an author who specializes in hauntings and the supernatural.

He explained that the spirit of Patience Worth would only speak when Pearl Curran was there.

- After a while, Pearl was able to get messages from Patience in her head and she would write them out, and then eventually she could dictate them.

Pearl, again, this normal average woman was getting messages from a ghost who then began creating poetry and writings and books.

She published four novels in the 1920s, a ghost did, through Pearl Curran.

She would tell her the stories, Pearl would write them down.

- [Veronica] Her literary works baffled experts of the day because Pearl was an ordinary housewife with only an eighth grade education.

Besides her books, Pearl would also participate in seances and even have Patience Worth write poems through her for local ladies clubs and social events.

And on October 20th, 1916, newspapers announced that Pearl Curran adopted a child and named her Patience Worth at the direction of her Ouija board.

The spirit of Patience Worth allegedly told Pearl to adopt the child because she resembled the ghost.

But whether or not you believe she was communicating with the spirit of Patience Worth, Troy Taylor says you can still find Pearl's or Patience's books in some stores and libraries.

- The books are there, the poetry is still there, and all of it apparently was created by a ghost and it's one of the biggest unsolved mysteries as far as the supernatural goes in American history and it's a St. Louis original.

- [Veronica] That was this week in history in 1916.

- And now back among the living.

Ruth Ezell recently met up with popular fantasy author and WashU alum V.E.

Schwab.

She was back in town recently and talked about her writing, about the inspiration, and the perspiration.

- [Cassie] This is a really fantastic story of an alchemist who tries to bring back his young apprentice who's dying.

- [Ruth] New York Times bestselling fantasy author Victoria "V.E."

Schwab, that's her on the right, got the VIP treatment at Washington University, courtesy of the Curator of Rare Books, Cassie Brand.

WashU is Schwab's alma mater.

- What's crazy is I did book arts here too, so I did book binding classes while I was here.

- Oh, that's fantastic.

- [Ruth] Schwab was in town in October to promote the release of her book, "The Fragile Threads of Power."

It's the first story of a new trilogy, a spinoff of her popular "Shades of Magic" series.

- And then these were meant to add your family crest.

- Okay, so it was a highly personalized document.

It was one of those almost like a Psalms book or a prayer book where it would've been personalized to the owner.

- Exactly - [Ruth] The morning before her scheduled author appearance, Schwab and Brand poured over a selection of centuries old books on alchemy, witchcraft, gothic fiction, and related subjects.

- Now is this a manual?

- Yes.

So this is a legitimate, here's how you identify- - A witch.

- A witch.

- Wow.

- [Ruth] V.E.

Schwab was born in California and raised in Nashville, Tennessee.

But when it came time to decide where to go to college, she chose this one.

And how did you decide on WashU?

- I decided for the trees.

I toured 19 colleges and then two days before Christmas, I came on a whim and visited Washington University, fell in love with the campus and applied and got an early decision.

Was meant to come for astrophysics.

Changed my major six times and ended up graduating with a degree in book design because my parents were like, "Please, just graduate.

We know you're gonna be a writer."

- They knew that?

- Yeah.

- [Ruth] When did you know that?

- I think I loved telling stories from a really young age, but I never thought I'd be a novelist because it's a huge lift.

The idea of keeping a three or five or 800 page novel in your head, it seemed too large for me, so I avoided it until I was 18.

And then I was just about to turn 19 and I realized that the reason I hadn't tried to write a novel was because I was terrified of failing to write a novel.

I have a very adversarial nature when it comes to fear.

And so I sat down here on campus and began to write my very first novel when I was 19.

And it was terrible.

It didn't get published, but it did get me a literary agent.

And when I was a second semester senior here at the Sam Fox School of the Visual Arts, I started checking out of my studio space every night and going over to Kaldi's Coffee Shop.

And between 9 and 11:00 PM when they closed, I would work on my next book and that would become my first published novel.

The fall after I graduated, it would sell.

- [Ruth] That novel, "The Near Witch," was published in 2011.

It was a milestone event but for Schwab, not exactly life-changing.

- I think you expect the world to change and it doesn't.

I mean, it's incredible and it's exciting, but like so many firsts, the best part about it is that you come out of it with the experience of how to do it again and how to do it better.

You come out of it with the knowledge that you can.

So I did not shoot to the top of a bestseller list, I did not become a really big name, I did not become a household figure.

I was a baby author, I was a 21 year old with a tiny book that went out of print after 18 months.

And then I wrote another book and that would become the beginning of a trilogy that would be canceled after two books.

And I was 25 and I think I was about to quit publishing and instead I decided to write a swan song, a book that was exactly what I wanted it to be.

I wrote a book called "Vicious," and that book would end up becoming my first adult novel and would change the shape of the rest of my career and now I'm 23 books in and it's pretty surreal to be back where it all started.

I would love it if people just assumed that like, oh, I must've made a deal with the devil to get my power.

- [Ruth] Schwab maintains a loyal following due in part to her astute use of social media and the internet.

- Hi and welcome to the official "Shades of Magic" read along.

I think the only thing that makes it official is the fact that I wrote the book and I'm the one doing the read along.

This is how it works.

Every week I'm gonna upload a video talking about a specific section of the book.

You can either read that section before you tune in or you can just tune in and treat this as a recap.

- [Ruth] So with an assist from YouTube, both newcomers to V.E.

Schwab's work and longtime followers gain insight into the author's creative process.

- It's nice and I think it's a really special experience when the writer does it because there are little backstories, little notes that I can tell you about why I wrote a specific moment or how it felt to write it.

And I think what social media does is create that sense of community.

Now, books themselves create a sense of community because I read a book, you read the same book, and we have a shared experience now, where we have obviously brought very different things to the book that we're reading, but they've lived in both of our minds.

For me though, social media has always been really important because I started in publishing when I was so young.

And to start in publishing at 19, the thing that they don't tell you about the first book experience is that it's pretty lonely.

You are an island and because you don't have a lot of context, because you can't really see what's happening in everybody else's journey, you assume that when you're having hard days, it's a reflection on you and not the fact that the industry's hard, not the fact that creating is hard.

And so I set out a goal, I guess like 17 years ago when I started, that I wanted to make my platform about authenticity, that I wanted to be really honest about the creative journey.

I wanted to be honest about the great days and the bad days.

I wanted to be honest about the fact that writing books is lonely and difficult.

And I find that if nothing else, it's less about communicating with my readers about my books and it's more about communicating with readers and writers about the process of making books, about giving them a little bit of a behind the scenes look so that they feel just as invested in the story and its journey to publication as I do.

- Calliope Antigone Burns is the youngest and the only female in a family of two boys.

Her biggest thing is just trying to prove to her family that she deserves respect as a monster hunter.

- [Ruth] The Netflix series "First Kill," a supernatural tale of teenage love between a vampire and a monster hunter is based on a V.E.

Schwab short story.

She's served as a writer and producer for the series.

The author found the experience a radical departure from working solo.

- Talk about a very different experience of creativity.

When you're writing a novel, you're essentially playing God.

For everything that you invent, for everything that lives on that page, you are responsible for it.

And you go to TV and film and you work in adaptation, and you are the smallest god in a very large pantheon of gods.

And so it becomes a communal effort.

And I always think it's kind of extraordinary whenever anything is good, because when you have 300 people working to bring one vision to life, what you really have is 300 visions.

And so it's an incredible experience though, the very first time I was on set and I saw the actors that were playing my characters walk into the room to do their blocking, and I thought to myself, "I made you up on a Tuesday.

Like I made you up.

I made you up and I named you."

I just think it's fascinating that then somebody can step into the world and it's like seeing a part of your mind walk into the room.

"Fragile Threads of Power" starts seven years after the end of "Conjuring of Light," the third book in the "Shades of Magic" series.

But if you haven't read those books, you should be able to start with "Fragile Threads of Power."

Don't listen to the "Shades of Magic" readers, they will tell you you can't do it.

- [Ruth] The evening after our interview, V.E.

Schwab and fellow writer Alix E. Harrow spoke to a packed house of more than 600 people at the Sun Theatre.

It's a far cry from her first book event, which she said drew a grand total of four.

These days, the author makes her home in Scotland.

The magical world she creates have made life pretty good in the real one.

- I feel so lucky to get to make things up for a living, to get to invent escapism for a living, and then to get to share it with other people.

When tour gets hard and when tour gets tiring, which it does, of course there's a huge amount of mundanity.

I just remember that at the end of each travel day, I get to meet readers.

- You'll often hear parents say to their kids, "Use your words," but a child with emotional issues may not be able to understand what's happening, let alone express themselves, and that's where play therapy comes in.

But as Leah Gullet shows us, for some folks, it's not just about finding the right therapy, but finding the right therapist.

- Firetruck sprays the tree!

(mimics water gushing) - [Leah] This may look like ordinary play time, but it's much more than that.

This is play therapy.

Because working through complex emotions lying on a couch isn't exactly kid friendly.

- Using play allows for us to speak the language of kids and help them in a non-threatening way work through issues that they have.

Sometimes they don't even know that they're struggling, but allowing them to play things out allows them to heal.

- [Leah] While it sounds easy to incorporate these practices, the process of teaching kids how to work through a traumatic incident and emotional wellbeing can be complex.

The current mental health crisis that kids in our community are facing has created many obstacles in accessing care.

Luckily, there are people in St. Louis that are providing solutions to our most vulnerable members of society.

- [Therapist] Good job!

- [Ebony] The Community Reach is really about improving outcomes for underrepresented communities, focusing primarily on mental and emotional wellness.

- [Leah] A child who may be acting out in school or home can utilize a play therapy session to freely express those emotions.

Drawing a picture or playing with toys can help uncover to the trained therapist what underlying issues may be causing the child's behavior.

The therapists will then discuss their observations with the family to develop a specific plan of care to support the child.

- What we try to prioritize is not just providing holistic services to the community, but also investing in our service providers as well.

- [Leah] One of the major obstacles for families seeking play therapy services is the national shortage of mental health providers.

- What I learned was that it wasn't that they didn't want therapy, they didn't want it from who they had the option of getting it from.

- [Leah] According to the American Psychological Association, only 4,000 out of more than 100,000 US clinical psychologists are child and adolescent clinicians.

Even if you do find a provider that is accepting new patients, the wait list can be months.

Not to mention, if you're looking for a provider with a more specific background or cultural understanding, resources are even more scarce.

Data from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that only 2% of the estimated 41,000 psychiatrists in the US are Black and just 4% of psychologists are Black.

- When you look at trauma, when you look at depression, when you look at anxiety, you cannot look at those diagnoses without also looking at the person and their environment.

You can't treat those symptoms without also recognizing that they're exacerbated by the lived experience, that being a marginalized person in this country and even this world.

- [Leah] There have been proposals in the field to help meet the increasing demand for child mental health professionals, such as federal initiatives that would repay the student loans.

But if the price is an obstacle for providers, it's of course an issue for families as some insurance plans cover these services, but a lot of times the care is out of pocket.

However, with the increase in need for child mental health services, there are also more resources available for families to implement at home.

- [Ebony] What we're doing is holistic.

It has to be the family, it has to be the communities 'cause this is hard.

It's hard when you feel like sometimes maybe the biggest blessing that you have is also a huge burden because we navigate this experience as Black and brown parents extremely different.

- Wait a minute, wow!

- [Leah] There are many benefits to play therapy for children from all walks of life, even if they aren't dealing with serious issues that need immediate attention.

- Play is what kids do to just communicate, to deal, to figure things out naturally.

What I want to do is just to be able to create a safe space holistically for our community.

- I don't see a police car.

- You don't see a police car?

- I think when we add in COVID on top of everything and just everything that you know, our level of violence and all the things that kids are dealing with here in the city, it's imperative.

I think that anyone that is a mental health professional that's working with a kid needs to do some type of training in play therapy.

- And that's "Living St.

Louis."

Keep sending your ideas and comments to ninepbs.org/lsl.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Jim Kirchherr and we'll see you next time.

(cheerful music) (cheerful music continues) (cheerful music continues) (cheerful music continues) (cheerful music continues) - [Announcer] "Living St. Louis" is funded in part by the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.