I’m so happy to share this Author Q&A with Elizabeth Ireland as of the Book Blog Tour for her book, Foul Deeds Will Rise, Book 2 of her Backstage Mysteries Series.
A quick blurb about Foul Deeds Will Rise:
By 1875, Lillian Nolan believes she has successfully shut off any connection to the spirit world. That winter she is thrilled when she wins the role of Ophelia in a new production of Hamlet in her home town of Chicago. Everything changes when the body of the managing director is found sprawled across the steps of the dress circle and all the investors’ money is missing. Lillian fears, once again, her career is over before it begins.
After her dearest friend is arrested for murder, Lillian commits herself to discovering the truth. Her search is complicated by a strange man who is following her, the romantic overtures of her co-star, and a reunion with an old nemesis. But nothing is what it seems. What she does find puts a member of her own family at risk and leads to the unmasking of the killer with lethal consequences for herself.
Some info about The Backstage Mystery series:
Life upon the wicked stage can be deadly.
Set against the backdrop of the Gilded Age, the Backstage Mystery Series stars Lillian Nolan, an unconventional member of Chicago’s upper class who dreams of a career of fortune and fame in the theater. Talented and ambitious, she possesses a hidden skill which she is extremely reluctant to use—the ability to communicate with those who have died and now live in the world of “The Beyond.”
The series chronicles her adventures in which she continually becomes enmeshed in solving mysteries which often require her accessing the realm of the paranormal. Filled with an incredible cast of characters—factual, fictional, and sometimes non-physical—who either help or hinder her quest for the truth, the stories take place during a a period considered to be the golden age of both acting and spiritualism in America.
You can read my review of A Walking Shadow (Book 1 in the Backstage Mystery Series) here.
To purchase Foul Deeds Will Rise
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Tell us a little about yourself.
I got the theatre bug when I was in high school and eventually received undergraduate and graduate degrees in this discipline. I taught for ten years at a college in Northern Illinois, and during a sabbatical started writing screenplays. After vacationing with my husband in Florida, we drove back through the Atlanta area and stopped to stay a night. Almost immediately, we fell in love with the beauty and energy of the area and made plans to move south.
I started a new phase of my life by accepting a position in the Atlanta marketing office of the Disney Channel. I was transferred to California and spent a year in Burbank. On my own time, I continued writing screenplays.
My screenplays have been a quarter-finalist and a semi-finalist for the Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting sponsored by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2006, I attended a woman’s retreat with a friend of mine and we ended up writing a nonfiction book together, Women of Vision: Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives, which was published in 2008.
The first of the Backstage Mystery series, originally titled Death Takes Center Stage won the 2012 fiction contest sponsored by Atlanta Publisher BookLogix, which was announced at the Decatur Book Festival, the country’s largest independent book festival.
List three fun facts about yourself that we wouldn’t read in your ‘official’ bio.
As a dachshund lover of almost manic proportions, I am currently owned by two exceptionally quirky examples of the breed – a black long hair and a dapple with blue eyes. I have had this breed since I was in high school and love them because each one comes with a completely different personality. I always adopt them through a dog rescue organization and I get a lot of dachshund paraphernalia as gifts. Right now, there is a sticky-note pad with dachshunds on it on my desk so I can use it to write short notes.
I do cross-stitch and have framed a lot of my projects which are hung on walls around the house or I have given as gifts.
I am a chocoholic. And I really want to wean myself off the stuff!
How has your past career as an Associate Professor of Theatre helped to shape your writing?
It has been absolutely essential to my writing. Theatre requires the study of other disciplines – math, science, philosophy, history, literature, art, etc. because they all impact theatre in one way or another. When I was in college, I had enough credits in the History Department and the English Department to major in them as well as Theatre. The great thing about studying theatre is that it is practical as well as theoretical. It is one thing to study the great plays, but it is another to actually be in or work on a production of the play. True knowledge comes from experience and I wouldn’t have been able to write my series without that kind of first-hand knowledge.
When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
It has been a gradual process. It seems like it is writing that won’t leave me alone, rather than me realizing I wanted to be a writer. It’s almost as if I have to write. When I was teaching, I would often direct the children’s plays. It’s hard to find really well written plays for children (although they are out there) so I started writing some. Then, after almost ten years teaching, I took a sabbatical and I started writing screenplays – first with a partner and then later by myself. After the sabbatical was over, I realized I was burned out from teaching, and eventually left it all together. I ended up working for The Disney Channel and thought my life would be a corporate one. Shortly after that, I got a new boss who had a background in theatre and writing plays! We ended up writing two projects together and after that I just couldn’t give up writing. When I got the idea for the series, I knew I had to just keep going with it.
Who are some of your favourite mystery writers?
I enjoy all kinds of mystery books and I have read a lot of them. Although I do prefer “puzzle” stories that are character driven rather than serial killer or psychological mysteries. Perhaps that’s why I’ve read all of Agatha Christie. However, I am drawn to historical fiction. I think a lot of other people are too. Among my favorites are Victoria Thompson and her Gaslight Mystery Series, C.S. Harris and the Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery Series and Alan Bradley. I just love his character of Flavia de Luce and her take on life. I enjoy being drawn into the lives of characters that live in a different time, a different world from ours. This is particularly true when an actual event in the past resonates with us. The backdrop of Foul Deeds Will Rise is the Financial Panic of 1873. It was originally called the Great Depression until the Crash of 1929 happened. But what happened in 1873 was very much like what happened in 2007-2008, only it was a railroad investing bubble that burst. It impacted everyone’s life just as the past crisis did.
Your Backstage Mysteries have a “touch of the paranormal” which adds an interesting element to your stories. Do you believe in the paranormal?
In the series, I made it an element of the story because after the Civil War, there was a huge upsurge in spiritualism. While there were a lot of fakes, there were also people and events that make you wonder. The medium who is a character in my books—Cora L.V. Tappan (eventually known as Cora L.V. Richmond)—was an actual person who travelled to England and spoke—or what we would call today, channeled—in front of thousands. Based on my own experience and research, there are certainly enough things in this world we cannot explain. I think there’s a lot of lost knowledge and we are currently discovering ways to access it. While science is important and helpful, I don’t think it is the end-all that many people think it is. I prefer to believe, as Hamlet does, in the oft-quoted speech from Act I, Scene 5:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Foul Deeds Will Rise is the second standalone book in the Backstage Mystery series. Do you have an idea of how many books will be in the series?
My main character, Lillian Nolan is writing a memoir of her life in the theatre. The plan is for her to live to be a hundred, or until 1954. During her life, she sees it all – from classical productions to vaudeville, to radio, early movies and early television. She meets the famous and the infamous in the world of entertainment and solves mysteries along the way. She will live through both world wars and the books will chronicle her personal, professional and metaphysical experiences. Right now, I’m not sure how many books that will take. It will depend on if I can keep it all fresh and interesting!
What is your typical day like when you’re working on a new book?
I write every day. I don’t really have a regular ritual. Rather, I would say I have a process which I follow with each book. Depending on where I am in the process of creating a work will dictate what I do. This routine helps me to keep on track. I move the story forward every day. When I’m working on a new book, I think about it all the time and take notes and write them down. Once everything has gelled, I do research to find out what I need to know for that period or year. Then I start to put it all together. Right now I’m working on Book Four and I’m just at the beginning of that process. I know what I want to do, but I haven’t made all the decisions on how that is all going to unfold. I do give myself deadlines because for a writer, nothing causes you to focus more than having a deadline!
When you’re not writing, what do you like to do in your spare time?
I like to read. I read all kinds of books besides mysteries. I also like to do research and learn new things. Occasionally, I take classes at the continuing education department at a local college. In the fall, I plan to study Astronomy. My daughter is in college now, so I spend as much time with her as I can whenever she’s available. I regularly see my friends, not just the ones who are writers, and I’m involved in their lives. I still do cross-stitch occasionally and of course, walk the dogs.
Do you have any other upcoming books or projects you’d like to share with us?
There are two screenplays I wrote sometime ago which I am considering turning into books. The first is based on a famous villa in Herculaneum, after which, the Getty Museum in Malibu, California is modeled. The plot includes lost knowledge, a pair of lovers who are separated by time and space during the eruptions of Mt. Vesuvius, and a mysterious mosaic. The second involves a perennial graduate student who is on spring break in the Yucatan and learns he is the key to an ancient prophecy involving a mysterious Mayan Codex, a shape-shifting Shaman, and the destiny of mankind. Both of these are more in the action-adventure genre but would blend the occult, science fiction and mystery.
Elizabeth Ireland discovered her passion for theater early. After receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees in Theater, she accepted a teaching position in a vibrant performing arts department at a college in northern Illinois. For ten years, she taught, directed and ran front-of-house operations. American Theater History—particularly that of the 19th century—has always been of particular interest to her.
She has been a quarter-finalist and a semi-finalist for the Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Two of her screenplays have been optioned, but remain unproduced. Her nonfiction work, Women of Vision: Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives, was published in 2008. Her work has also been published in a collection of paranormal short stories, Paramourtal: Tales of Undying Love and Loving the Undead. She lives in metro Atlanta with her ever-patient husband, and two quirky dachshunds.
