[Announcer] This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society, advancing the interests of women and the arts in Virginia and beyond.

[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -Welcome, I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around The Corner at The Alley Light in Charlottesville with author Katharine Schellman.

Her books, Th e Last Call at the Nightingale and The Last Drop of Hemlock take us to a speakeasy in New York during the 1920s.

There's a lot of dancing, jazz, drama, and, of course, suspicious deaths.

Katharine, welcome to Write Around the Corner.

-Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to be here.

-And isn't this a fabulous location, The Alley Light?

-It's wonderful.

I'm going to have to come back very soon.

-Well, and they've been so kind.

Chris here at The Alley Light was like, sure, we can shoot this episode here.

So, your background; you knew you wanted to be a writer at the age of six?

-Yes, I think that was when I first announced to my parents that that was what I was going to do when I grew up.

And, you know, to their credit, they said, "That sounds like a great idea," but I don't know how seriously they took it.

-Do you have any of those early stories?

-I think they were all written on very, like the wide lined paper, so I'm not sure that they survived various moves through childhood.

I do have a number of early books that I wrote that were originally, like, on floppy disks and now live on my hard drive, and I'm never going to show those to anyone, but they're nice to have, sort of nostalgically.

-That's true.

It is part of our history, of our childhood.

Now, you said your mom was an artist... -Yeah.

-And so, a family of writers or painters or, what type of art?

-A little bit of everything, really.

My grandmother was a painter.

My mom's a painter also.

My dad writes a lot.

He does more nonfiction, but he does some short stories also.

And I do novels.

And so, we got a little bit of a lot of different things.

-Do you notice anything coming forth from your little people?

You have a two-year-old and a seven-year-old.

-My seven-year-old is very artistic.

He loves to draw and paint and work with clay.

So he might have gotten the visual artist gene, which skipped me.

-Well, but the other artist genes didn't skip you because you also were a dancer, and an actor and a writer.

So, how did all of those worlds blend to help you to become creative and bring those stories to life on paper?

-Well, writing was the first real kind of storytelling that I fell in love with.

But then, when I was in, I think fifth or 6th grade, I took an acting class, an after-school acting class, and I fell in love with that.

I'd been dancing since I was five, but I think when I took acting was when I really fell in love with being on stage.

So then I decided, okay, I'm going to act first.

I'm going to act and dance first.

And then, when I'm done with that, I'll write.

-So what were some of the things you did for acting?

-I did a lot of Shakespeare and a lot of musical theater also because I was a dancer.

I'm not a great singer, but I can hold my own in the chorus of a show.

So I did a lot of musicals when I lived up in Philadelphia, in the Philadelphia and New Jersey area.

I think my favorite production that I was ever in was one of "Guys and Dolls."

-Oh, wonderful.

What did you play?

-I was a Hot Box Dancer.

-Okay.

And what type of dancing were you trained in?

All of the types, or do you have a favorite?

-A little bit of everything.

I did mostly ballet when I was studying.

I did pointe for several years, and then after a number of injuries, I had to move on from that a little bit.

So I did a lot more contemporary and musical theater, that sort of thing.

-The discipline with dancing and the memorization with acting had to play into how you write, because I'm thinking, you know, it's regimen and you're getting a lot of feedback and maybe critical feedback as a dancer.

-Yes.

-And you get the kind of the same thing as a writer, I would think, when you send stuff off to your editors.

True?

-Absolutely.

Yes.

And it actually, I think it does make it very easy for me to receive that kind of criticism and not take it personally.

One of the things that they taught us when I was dancing at the dance school I was in, they said, if you get a correction from the teacher, that means the teacher thought you were worth watching.

-Mm.

-If you don't get any corrections in the class, that means no one was looking at you.

So in a way, getting those corrections, getting feedback, and getting edits, that's someone saying, I think you're worth putting that time into.

-That's a great advice, I think, if people think about it in terms of trying to make it better, and that's what it's really all about.

And I read something else about you that you had a director at one time that asked you, what is the verb?

-Yes.

-What's that about?

-So when you're acting, you don't want to do anything useless on stage.

You never want to be out of character.

You never want to not have a purpose to what your character is doing.

So, even something like crossing the stage to pick up a drink, or asking another character why, you know, just a very simple one-word line.

You always want to have some purpose behind what you're doing.

So I had a director who would always say, what is your verb?

What is the action that you are trying to achieve with this?

Are you interrogating?

Are you convincing?

Are you deflecting?

Are you investigating?

And so that, I think, really spills over into my writing, because especially something that has, like a mystery that's supposed to be fast paced, it's supposed to really be dropping clues all along the way.

It's supposed to be really engaging a reader, and everything has to be very intentional.

I always end up thinking, okay, in this scene, what's the verb?

What's the character trying to accomplish here?

-Wouldn't he like to know that you've used that all these years later, and becoming the successful writer that you are?

Have you reached out to him and let him know, you know, that piece of advice, I'm still using it.

-I haven't.

I probably should.

-Yeah.

With a signed copy of your books, maybe.

With a signed copy of books.

So, when you're involved in your process, you're a very character-driven writer, which I love the depth and the quality of your characters.

But do you plot them first?

Do you do extensive outlines, or do you do a framework that kind of gives you where you're going, and then it kind of gets thrown away?

-I tend to start with an outline.

My very first book that I wrote of my published books that became The Body in the Garden , which was my debut, I did not have an outline when I sat down to write it.

I'd never written a mystery before.

I had characters, but no idea what the plot was going to be.

And I just kept writing until I reached the end of the book.

And when I looked at the word count, it was about a book and a half of a book.

And so, I had to cut out about a third of the whole thing to really tighten it up and make it work.

So that was a real learning experience for me.

And I discovered that some people might be able to write a mystery like that, but I am not one of them.

So these days, I outline pretty stringently.

And, of course, things are still going to change, you know.

I think of the outline like the first draft, and things are always going to change from draft one to draft two in any kind of-- whatever your process is.

So I don't, you know, if something is different than what I put in the outline, that's fine.

But I definitely find that it's useful to know what's happening next and where each scene needs to go.

-Mm.

Is drafting your favorite or your least favorite?

-Oh, my least favorite.

It's definitely my least favorite part.

I think most writers will fall into either the camp of, you know, you love drafting, you love that empty page and figuring out that story for the first time, or you love editing, you like having it there, and tweaking and pulling things together and finding just the right word.

And that's the part I love.

I, you know, drafting is something I have to do to get the book out.

But then, once I'm getting to editing, that's the really fun part for me.

-I read something about you that you oftentimes will do your first word or your first paragraph just to get beyond it.

-Yes.

-And to just make it a placeholder.

And then, you can write the real story, and then you might go back and change that.

-That happens almost every chapter... -Really?

-...I would say.

Yes, because starting something, you always want to find just the right words to start it.

And I think finding just the right words is sort of your enemy when you're trying to do that first draft, because you can always go back and change it.

And if you sit there spending three hours trying to find just the right sentence to start your chapter or your book, and then you go back and you change it anyway when you're editing, you maybe didn't need to spend those three hours on it.

So, a lot of times, you know, I will just write something as a placeholder.

I won't even write it.

I'll just start at sort of the part that I know is happening, and then I'll go back and fill in the beginning section a little bit later.

-Oh, that's interesting because also you research so much and have to research in depth for the time period or what's really happening.

So to come up with the appropriate language that you might want to use, or how they might have said something in the speakeasy, or what really might have happened during the era.

I can imagine that your Google searches are probably really interesting, with murder and poison and, you know, all kinds of things.

So, what is your research like?

-It's a really weird mix.

The Google search is very strange because it'll be everything from, you know, shape of hat, 1924, to... what does a body look like after arsenic poisoning.

Like, it's a very weird mixture.

Like, I would not want anyone to look at my search history, but I do enjoy the research process a lot.

-Well, one of the things I loved was the whole idea of the nightclubs in the '20s.

And yet, the whole idea of what was going on with prohibition and the corruption and the money making, and what a business it was for politicians.

What did you uncover when you thought, you know, I think I might write a book in the jazz age.

And it turned into, wow, there's a lot more that was going on during this time period.

-It ended up being a great time to set a murder mystery, because there's just crime everywhere.

You know, there's the upstanding people committing crimes.

There's the criminals committing crimes.

There's the people in between who are just trying to go out and have a drink with their friends, but they're also committing a crime because that was illegal then, too.

So it gives you a lot to play with as a writer.

-Mm.

You know, when you think about the '20s, during the speakeasies, you had the influence of, you know, the mob.

The money was really permeating everything with also the corruption and the illegality of everything that was going on.

But then you had places, you know, like we're sitting in now, the speakeasy, which was a safe spot.

It was a place where people could get away, and no matter who you were, what you believed, who you loved, you were safe, and you could have a drink and listen to some music.

And it was kind of an escapism, wasn't it?

-It was, absolutely, I think, because everything was already illegal and everyone was out, you know, having this naughty, illicit time.

A lot of things that were socially taboo or could be dangerous sort of in your everyday life, people were a little more willing to look the other way.

So things like same-sex relationships, you might not be able to be openly with your partner, you know, when you're walking to work or where you're living, but you could go out drinking and dancing with them.

And if you were in the right spot, that was okay.

You wouldn't even be the only one there.

So, it definitely, it could be a very safe location for a lot of people who maybe weren't quite so safe.

You know, there were same-sex couples, people of color at the time.

You know, it created a real haven for a lot of groups.

-Well, for diversity, in general.

-Yes.

-Right?

Because even in your books, you know, there's people from all backgrounds, all types of life, just coming together and enjoying a moment of escapism.

-Yes.

And it could still be dangerous.

You know, there's always that threat of, you know, a police raid or something along those lines happening.

And if you got picked up by the police, you know, that safe space was suddenly gone.

And it would be very dangerous for a same-sex couple to be caught and dragged out of a speakeasy.

So, there's still that element of danger.

There's still that risk to it, but it definitely created a lot of spaces that were more welcoming than people might find.

-So, when we have the era of the '20s, we've got the speakeasy.

So, you came up with the idea of the Nightingale.

And the Nightingale is actually a character also, as rich and wonderful as the other main characters in your book.

And this is the first in a series of books.

And so, we'll chat about the first two, and then we'll tease everybody with what's coming beyond that.

-[ Katharine] Okay.

-[Rose] So the characters in the Nightingale: give our viewers and your readers a little framework for who they are, why they're here, and, of course, the Nightingale itself.

-So, the main character is Vivian Kelly.

She is the child of Irish immigrants.

She's an orphan.

She's quite poor.

She's very working class.

She works as a seamstress during the day in the first book.

And so, going out at night to the Nightingale, it's really, it's her escape.

You know, it's her haven from this very-- from the drudgery of, you know, this very working class, you know, kind of hopeless life.

And to her, it's just a big party.

She has friends there.

Her neighbor Bea is a waitress there.

And she's the one who introduced Vivian to the Nightingale.

The bartender, Danny, is the son of Chinese immigrants.

But, you know, that's a space where he can have a job and be respected, and really interact with a lot of different people in a way that he wouldn't be able to outside of the Nightingale.

The owner, Honor Huxley, is a lesbian who runs this business.

And so, it's a very like, you know, underground, very shady kind of place, but it's also very welcoming to a lot of very different groups of people.

So, Vivian just thinks of it as this big party.

You know, it's this escape.

It's this wonderful place where she can just go and be free and be herself.

And she ends up discovering that it's not quite as much of a safe space, and not quite as much of a party as she thought it was when she finds a dead body behind the Nightingale one night, and she ends up with a lot of people thinking she knows more about what happened than she necessarily does.

So that's in the first book.

By the second book, she's a little more jaded about sort of what goes into making the party happen on the surface, like everything that's going on underneath.

But the Nightingale is still very much a home to her.

It's still very much a safe space for her.

And she works there in the second book.

But again, you know, there's still a lot of that darkness going on underneath.

And this time, in the second book, it drags in some of her friends a little bit more.

So, Vivian has to help them out and get involved in that sort of underground life again.

-Well, and she's such a strong woman character.

She's impulsive... -Mm-mm.

-Right?

I think I love the way you have decision making with all of the characters...

I'm reading along, and I'm thinking, don't do that.

You really don't want to do that right now.

No, Vivian, don't do that.

And yet, you have, it's reality, right.

They make some great decisions, and they make some questionable decisions.

-I think of Vivian as a character who makes bad decisions for very good reasons.

You know, she always has good intentions.

She's trying to help people out.

She's trying to keep the people she cares about safe, and she just doesn't think through what's going to happen.

-And she gets herself involved in everybody's situation, right.

And yet, controversy... her sister is just the opposite.

-Yes.

The sister, Florence, their relationship ended up really being, in a lot of ways, very much the heart of the story, at least in the first book, because they are such opposites.

Florence is a homebody.

She also works as a seamstress, and she's very cautious.

She doesn't want to rock the boat.

She doesn't want to push back against any of those sort of strictures and restrictions that are put on people in their situation, whereas Vivian really wants to get out there and sort of create a different life for herself, and she wants Florence to do that, too.

And so, there's a lot of tension between the two of them, but there's also that very strong sisterly bond between them because they're orphans, they're who they have, and that's kind of it for them.

-And I love the way that that relationship grows and changes.

And even though they're so different, you know that that bond of sisterhood is going to be there, no matter what other kinds of things come in and out of their lives, or what other experiences they have, right?

-Absolutely.

-So, move us into the Nightingale, who are the characters in the Nightingale?

-So, the sort of main character you meet at the Nightingale is the owner, Honor Huxley.

And she is a very mysterious character, I think.

You don't find out a lot about who she is or where she comes from in the first two books, but she's really created this... it's almost like a little underground kingdom for herself because she needed a place where she could be safe, and she could be herself and feel like she was in control of her life.

So, she created the Nightingale.

And then, she extended that to all the people who work for her, and the people who come there to dance and to drink and have a good time.

So, she has pretty stringent rules for behavior there, but, you know, it's still a party.

It's still a speakeasy, you know.

It's still a good time for everyone.

But she and Vivian have a pretty tumultuous relationship.

There's a lot of chemistry there and a lot of tension, and also a lot of secrets where neither of them are quite willing to be honest and vulnerable with each other.

So, they have a pretty tense relationship in the first book, and it only gets more fraught in the second one.

And then, on the other side of that, there's also a little bit of a love triangle, because Vivian has that relationship with Honor that's always sort of in the back of her mind, and always something that she's very intrigued by.

But then, she also meets a bootlegger from Chicago named Leo.

And he also maybe isn't being so honest about who he is or where he comes from, but he's, you know, he's very charming.

He's very fun.

He wants, like Vivian, he wants to take care of people and help them out, so they really have that, personality-wise, in common.

So, they click very early on, but then there's a lot of tension between, you know, how easy and comfortable Vivian feels with Leo versus how, you know, so tense and intriguing things are with Honor.

And then, the fact that both of them, you know, all of them really, all three of them, keep secrets from each other, and none of them are quite honest about, you know, who they are and what they're doing.

-But you've built friendships, too, amongst all of them.

So, within the speakeasy, we get to know the bartender, Danny, and we get to know about his life and his family.

We get to know what happens to Vivian outside of, you know, when she's at the speakeasy with her dancing dress on, doing the Charleston.

And, you know, she uses dancing as relaxation, you know.

Give me a glass of champagne and let's head out to the dance floor.

-Yes, absolutely.

I think for her, you know, she wants that escape.

She wants that fun, even once she knows that, you know, maybe there is that dark side to it.

Maybe there is, you know, that level of danger.

She still wants to, you know, sometimes just pretend like everything's okay, and she can have her champagne and she can have a good time.

-Well, even the whole city, like you have New York, you have, you know, Mrs. Henry and Mrs. Ethel, who's owning the shop for the dressmaking.

There's so many things about this time period that seem so authentic that I feel like I could, you know, go outside of the shop and walk down the streets of New York, or walk into the speakeasy when it's time and listen to the band get started, right.

-Well, thank you.

I'm really glad you said that.

-[Rose] It's amazing.

-I really, I wanted New York to feel like a character.

I wanted the Nightingale to feel like a character.

And I wanted to really show a side of the 1920s that, you know, if you're used to sort of the Fitzgerald side of things, if you're used to reading The Great Gatsby , you don't necessarily see what's going on underneath the lives of the rich.

You know, you have the people who are out on Long Island just, it's one endless party, and there's no consequences for anything they do.

I wanted to pull back from that a little bit and show, okay, who else was in the city at the time.

You have working class people, you have immigrants, you have people who interact with the wealthy, you know, Fifth Avenue set, but they're not part of that world.

And their world's maybe a little bit more dangerous because of that.

-The other thing we found interesting was, you know, that there were about 32,000 speakeasies in New York City.

So, you could go about four blocks.

-Yes.

-Or then, when I was reading that you found some really crazy stuff, like, okay, they would send you dehydrated grapes with how not to make wine.

-Yes.

Oh, my gosh.

The ways people got around prohibition were just... you know, they read like fiction.

One of my favorites is that you could not buy or sell alcohol in the United States.

But if you loaded a boat full of people in New York Harbor and took the boat out to international waters, and met up with another boat coming down from Canada that then unloaded crates of booze onto your boat, no one could stop you because you were out in international waters.

-Right.

-So there were people that would basically host, they were called parties or trips to nowhere, or parties to nowhere.

And people would just go out on this boat for two or three days and just be drinking the whole time and dancing and having a party, and then they'd stumble back to New York, probably terribly hungover, but it was basically the original booze cruise.

-Yeah, well, and I love one of these quotes in the second book, Last Drop of Hemlock .

[reading] "Some days, it was just too much "to look real life in the face.

"Some days, the only thing to do was lose yourself in the music for as long as you can manage."

So, I think about, you know, Vivian and the getaway, and how people kind of use the speakeasy and this time period to just escape from, no matter what life was outside the doors, that when they came in and they ordered their drinks, and they were their family, listening to the music, that it was really, really good, and it was safe.

Would you be willing to read something for us?

-Absolutely.

I'd love to.

-[Rose] Okay.

What did you choose?

-I'm going to read the first chapter, actually.

-[Rose] Of which book?

-Of Last Drop of Hemlock .

-[Rose] Okay.

-"One.

The rumor went through the Nightingale like a flood, "quietly rising, whispers hovering on lips "in pockets of silence. "

Dead , the voices murmured. "

Dead?

"On the dance floor or jostling at the bar, "voices and drinks raised in equal measure, "the club's patrons didn't hear it "sweeping around them.

"They were too caught up "in escaping from their daylight lives, "too distracted by the music that carried them together, "apart, together again, "kicking up their heels for the Charleston "or catching their breath in a waltz.

"They were too busy calling for another drink, "another kiss, another song.

"Too busy following the rhythm of the music, "shaking sweat from their eyes, "enjoying being young and free or old and freer. "

Dead , the voices murmured where the dancers couldn't hear. "

Dead?

"Instead, the rumor went through the workers, "the waitresses and bartenders, the bouncers and busboys.

"They dodged between the tables, guarded the doors, "and flirted with the customers while they mixed drinks, "as light on their feet as the dancers, "as they moved through the club that was their second home.

"And the rumor moved with them. "

Did you hear?

they murmured. "

Dead.

"When the band took a break, "the rumor made its way to them, too, "delivered with a tray of drinks "for the thirsty, curious musicians "who had watched the whispers rippling around them. "

How'd you find out?

they murmured back. "

What's she going to do?

"The rumor went through the Nightingale like a flood, "creeping higher and higher "before anyone realized it had traveled quite so far. "

Dead, the voices murmured.

Dead?

Dead."

-Dead.

So, in book one, you've told us that Vivian discovers a dead body and then has to figure out or figures out how to put the pieces together with all of her friends.

In book two, the title has The Last Drop of Hemlock, so there may be another way that the dead bodies begin to show up.

-Yes, well, without spoiling anything too much, in book two, I think this is on the back cover, so I can probably reveal this much.

Bea, Vivian's friend who also works at the Nightingale, her uncle is found dead.

And it seems like a pretty straightforward death, but Bea doesn't think it is.

She thinks there's more going on, so she asks Vivian for help, trying to figure out exactly what happened to her uncle, who was also a bouncer at the Nightingale.

And Vivian agrees, sort of, to put her friend's mind at ease.

She doesn't necessarily think anything is going on, but the two of them uncover a little bit more than they expected to.

-That's a great tease for everyone because there are so many twists and turns.

And now, I understand from where we, before we started shooting the show, there's a third book coming.

-Yes.

-And how many do you anticipate for the series?

-Right now, we have four planned.

-Okay, so how about number three?

What are we going to see in number three?

-In number three, it becomes very personal because Vivian herself is the one who's in trouble, and there's a bit of a ticking clock before she is at risk of getting arrested.

So, she has to figure out what's going on and who is really responsible for a pretty surprising death before she is the one who's blamed for it.

-Oh, Katharine, thank you so much for being on Write Around the Corner and for sharing these books with us.

I love this location, and I can't wait for us to be able to see what's going on subsequently in all of these stories.

-Thank you so much.

-[Rose] All righty.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

My special thanks to Katharine Schellman and Chris here at The Alley Light in Charlottesville.

Her two books, Last Call at the Nightingale and The Last Drop of Hemlock, are amazing reads, full of twists and turns.

Ta ke yourself back to the 1920s, to the jazz age, and help us solve these murders.

Check out more of our conversation online as we will be talking to Katharine about her other book series.

I'm Rose Martin, and I will see you next time Write Around The Corner .

[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [Announcer] This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society, advancing the interests of women and the arts in Virginia and beyond.