Fans of historical mysteries won’t want to miss out on Katharine Schellman’s Last Call at the Nightingale (out TODAY!), trust me! And if you don’t trust me (insert sad face here), then you can check out the review we posted on instagram a few days ago. But don’t just take our word for it, because this interview will do plenty to convince you too!
And remember you can also follow Katharine on twitter.
Have you always known you wanted to be a writer? How old were you when you wrote your first story?
I think I was about six years old when I first announced to my parents that I wanted to write books when I grew up. I honestly have no idea when I wrote my first story—writing was just something I did constantly when I was growing up. I think I finished my first novel when I was about 15 years old, and it was truly terrible.
Over the next decade, I wrote pretty consistently while pursuing other work, including many short stories and another novel and a half. Most of it has never seen the light of day, but it was all excellent practice for when I sat down and started to write the book that would become my debut.
What are your favourite genres to read and write, and are there any genres or tropes you wouldn’t write?
I love to read mysteries, fantasy, sci-fi, romance, historical fiction… Anything with characters that make me feel really invested in what happens to them. So far I’ve written historical mysteries, but I’d love to try my hand at a fantasy novel one of these days.
In terms of tropes, I don’t like to say never, because I think most things can be interesting if you find your own spin to put on them. I’m very over “bury your gays” stories, though, and female characters only existing in order to be damseled or fridged. I think there are more interesting ways to create conflict in a story.
When you close your eyes and imagine an apple, what do you see? An actual apple, a sketch of one, a blackness? Do you think that impacts your writing process?
I see an actual apple. But it’s not by itself! It always has to be an apple in context. Is it sitting on a counter? Hanging from a tree? Is someone holding it? Biting it? Throwing it?
I always want to know what action is being done or not done to the apple, which really just means what story it’s a part of. I used to work as an actor, and I had one director who would always ask, “What’s your verb?” meaning, “What action is your character doing and why?” That definitely applies to my writing and apparently to imagining apples too!
Which three authors would you say influenced your writing the most?
Oh, that’s such a hard one to answer. I’m just going to go with the first three that come to mind.
Lloyd Alexander was the first author whose writing I just fell in love with, and I read everything he wrote while I was in elementary school. Reading Margaret Atwood taught me how powerful genre fiction could be and how vital it is to create characters that readers can really connect to. And N.K. Jemisin is, I think, one of the best worldbuilders out there, both in terms of how she creates her worlds and how she slowly reveals them to readers.
I just noticed none of those are mystery writers, though! I could do a separate mystery list, but I actually think reading across genres can teach you so much, so I’m going to stick with those three.
When you’re building your world, what do you focus on? How do you try to make it come to life?
I always start with characters, so building the world is really a process of figuring out how those characters interact with it. What is this society like, what are its assumptions and rules, and how do these characters fit or not fit there? What kind of tension does that create?
Since I write historical fiction, there’s also a lot of practical research that goes into building a world. I’ll research everything from where the subway stops were to what brand of condensed milk people could buy. Only about 30% of that research makes it into a book, but it’s all helpful to have in my mind!
What projects are you currently working on? Can you share any details yet?
Currently, I’m working on the second Nightingale mystery, in which Vivian and Bea discover that a criminal organization is targeting people in their neighborhood. They get pulled into trying to uncover its members when Bea’s family is threatened. There’s dancing, jazz music, suspicious deaths, sister drama, romance, only one bed, and a few twists that I hope will be a lot of fun.
I’m also writing the fourth book in my Lily Adler mysteries. It’s challenging to switch back and forth between two series, but it helps that the worlds and characters are so different. I never get confused about which voice I’m supposed to be writing in!
Three songs you would put in your book’s soundtrack?
We actually put together a whole playlist in our Book Club Guide! Three of my favorites from that list are Everybody Loves My Baby (Aileen Stanley), Charleston (Cecil Mack and Jimmy Johnson), and Masculine Women, Feminine Men! (Irving Kaufman).
Which of your characters would you most want to fight a zombie apocalypse with?
Almost anyone from the Nightingale. Danny and Leo are both fighters, so they can hold their own. Vivian doesn’t really know how to fight, but she’s scrappy as hell, so I think she’d do all right.
But if I had to pick just one, it would be Honor Huxley, no question. She can take on anything. And she’d probably look so badass and stylish while she’s doing it.
You can collaborate on anything with anyone in the LGBT community: who would it be and why?
I’d probably be too nervous to do anything but fangirl all over the place, but Cat Sebastian. Historical romance, historical mystery, queer characters living complex and fulfilling lives… Plus the tagline for her romantic mystery series is “Agatha Christie but make it gay!” So good.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Katharine Schellman is a former actor and one-time political consultant. These days, she writes the Lily Adler Mysteries (Crooked Lane Books) and the Nightingale Mysteries (Minotaur/St. Martin’s Press). Last Call at the Nightingale, her newest release, is a Publishers Weekly Summer Reads Pick for 2022 and a BookPage Most Anticipated Mystery & Suspense Book of 2022. Her debut novel, The Body in the Garden, was one of Suspense Magazine’s Best Books of 2020 and led to her being named one of BookPage’s 16 Women to Watch in 2020. Its sequel, Silence in the Library, was praised as “worthy of Agatha Christie or Rex Stout.” (Library Journal, starred review) Katharine lives and writes in the mountains of Virginia in the company of her husband, children, and the many houseplants she keeps accidentally murdering.
Follow on Goodreads | Preorder Last Call at the Nightingale
