 discuss reading, writing, and everything in between and beyond. I'm your host Dr. Rita Forsyth, coming to you from Maui on the ThinkTech live streaming network broadcasting from our studio in downtown Honolulu. Today we're talking to renowned author Juliet Blackwell with over 25 novels translated in 11 languages. She believes in the magic of language, travel, and cultural exchange to open hearts, minds, and souls. Welcome Juliet. Oh, thank you, Rita. So nice to be here. It really is. I'm so impressed with your work. I haven't read all of your books, but I've read a lot of them. You penned the New York Times Bestselling Witchcraft Mysteries, the Haunted House Renovation Series, and I know the Art Lovers Mystery Series was nominated for the Agatha Award. Congratulations for that. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that was the very first, the first book in that series was the very first book I ever wrote and it was nominated. So that was really nice. That was like a little plunge into the mystery world. It was very fun. I'm also impressed that you live in a 100 year old house with extensive botanical gardens in Northern California and you spend a lot of time in Europe and Latin America. I imagine you find inspiration in those places with the people and the culture. Always, always. Yeah, I think you had mentioned that I believe in the magic of travel and cultural exchange and I really do. I think there's nothing quite like being in a different country and seeing that people do things differently and they see the world differently and they have different histories. They come at things very differently, different religions. I find that I'm also, as you know, I was an anthropologist. I was trained as an anthropologist, so I think it's probably in me very deeply to want to just see how other people do things and connect in that way. So you studied to be an anthropologist before you became a writer? I did. I did. I actually, I'm still ABD. I'd never got that dissertation then, but went on to other things and started writing fiction, which is a heck of a lot easier than writing academic dissertations. So my hat's off to you, doctor. It's a, you know, that's fiction is a very different animal, but it was when I first started writing fiction, it was such fun because I didn't have to make any footnotes. I didn't have to look things up. You know, it was really fun and very freeing that way. Well, how did you get started? What inspired you to become a writer of fictional novels? You know, I think it was just because I've always been a reader. Apparently, I don't remember this, but I have friends from college who said that I always, that one day I would write a book that I used to say that, and I don't remember saying that, but apparently I said that. So I think it was probably always in my mind the way it is for a lot of people who are readers. I think anybody who loves the world of books, it's always like, oh, I wonder if I could do that and how fun would that be? So, yeah, so I was working, I had given up anthropology and I was working actually as a faux finisher and painting murals. I was a professional artist for a while and I was working in San Francisco in an old mansion in Pacific Heights in the middle of the night, one night, and thinking to myself that I heard somebody in the, what was supposed to be a vacant building. And I remember thinking, wow, this would be a great place for a murder mystery. The faux finisher who winds up dead in a mansion. Luckily, it wasn't anything quite so dramatic, but it did make me think, oh, you know, this could be really fun. And this was a while ago, I think when what we now call cozy mysteries, they were just beginning. And I had read a series that featured a woman who was a chef. And then, you know, I remember thinking, oh, I wonder if there's someone who's a faux finisher who has my job because my job was a lot about going in and out of really expensive homes. And one thing that happens when you're working in someone's home as they often live life around you, they sort of forget that you're there and say things in front of you that perhaps they wouldn't always say. So I just thought, oh, this could be a really fun main character. And then the other thing is I've always been fascinated by art forgery. So I made the protagonist, Annie Kincaid is an ex art forger who's trying to go straight as a faux finisher. So that's the conceit of that first series, which is really fun. I want to go back when you were talking a little bit about your travels and learning how different people live in different cultures. And, you know, that's the power of books. And that's what this program is all about. How books can bring you places that you maybe can't travel physically. And your writing sure does that for me. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, now that I write the books, so many books, well, my mystery series are all set in San Francisco, but now I also write books set in France. And I know that perhaps, especially the last couple of years, people have really wanted to do some armchair traveling. And that's that's really fun to be able to share some of the places I've been with with readers. That's really, really fun. A staycation with your novels. Yes, exactly. Speaking of France, you're going to read one of my favorite letters from Paris. And thank you for reading a few pages for us. Of course, of course. Would you like that now? Yes, please. Okay. Okay. And as you're setting up, I know your mainstream fictions are often dual timeline, contemporary and historical. So that's fascinating. They are they are. Yeah, I enjoy writing a contemporary story and then having some sort of historical mystery that connects to modern day times. You know, partly it's just because it's fun. It's fun. I've always loved old things and it's really fun to to have people go in search of something from the past. But of course, I think that the past reaches out and affects our present, whether we know it or not. And so I really enjoy that aspect of things. Yes. Wonderful. And then letters from Paris. Yeah, it is the the contemporary story is a a woman who decides to go to Paris on this quest to find the origin of something that she found many, many years ago as a young girl in her grandmother's attic. And she's from a small town in Louisiana. And so the the bit I was going to read is actually from from when she's a small girl, she's a young girl. And she's hiding in her grandmother's attic because her cousin's mean to her and she's just up there. And she's had a hard, a hard childhood up to this point, but her grandmother is sort of her savior. And so one of the reasons she goes to Paris is that her grandmother actually urges her to go. Here's I'll just start reading a few pages. The oppressive heat drenched her in perspiration within moments, but chance cherished the privacy, the thrill of having a secret layer. She passed lazy stifling summer afternoons up there with a big jar of sweet tea, safe from Jessica and her gang, calling through what Mama called the treasures of a lifetime, even though it was mostly junk, old albums full of curling photos and faded snapshots. She always searched for photos of her mother. A mildew scented baby clothes, boxes containing bowling trophies and military papers, and an old pink crib missing two spindles. But then she spied the wooden crate. It was shoved shoved up under the eaves, way back behind cardboard boxes that once held dog food or laundry detergent, but were now crammed with school papers and yellow doilies and handmade Christmas ornaments. A tension fragile was stamped in red ink on the top and sides. Manipulate avec attention. A return address read Moulange Lombardy, 17 Rue de la Rochette, Paris, France. Paris, excitement surged through her. She tried finding the crate open with her bare hands, ignoring the pinch of splinters. No luck. Then she rummaged around until she unearthed a metal wreath holder in the box of Christmas supplies. She shoved it into a tiny gap under the top of the crate and used all her weight to push, with a loud screech the rusty old nails gave way. Chance lifted the plank. Inside was a mix of sawdust and newspapers and crumpled up scrap paper. She swept them aside and caught her breath at what was revealed. A sleep right there in the box was the life-sized face of a lady. Her eyes were closed, but she smiled just barely as though she knew a secret. She probably used to be beautiful, Chance thought. But the sculpture had been broken into half a dozen pieces, ugly jagged fissures running across her otherwise smooth white forehead and round cheeks. What a shame. She would have looked pretty hanging on the wall, maybe over the TV so they could look at her during commercials. Right next to the free calendar from the bakery in town, Remy's old army photo and a blue, black, and green finger painting with spider in its web that Claire had made in second grade and Mamma had framed and hung with pride. Chance stroked the mask's fragments, feeling their curves and contours under her fingers. The pieces were heavy, made of thick plaster. On top they were slick with a satiny sheen as though sealed with varnish. But when she ran the pads of her fingers along the edges of the broken bits, they felt gritty and raw, putting her in mind of the rough gray rocks that scraped at her bare feet when she clumped over them at the beach. Chucky dust coated her hands when she pulled away. Chance rubbed the white powder between her thumb and fingers, wondering who the lady was and how she came to be in her mamma's attic, all the way from Paris. Chance hesitated, then glanced over her shoulder to be sure she was alone. Of course she was, no one but her ever came up here, but still. She squeezed her eyes shut, blew out a long breath to help her relax, then reached out both hands and laid them on the lady's broken face, waiting to see if the figure would talk to her. This was exactly the sort of thing that made Chance weird, a misfit, and invited the wrath of Jessica. No wonder your mommy killed herself and tried to take you with her. Chance knew that, but sometimes it worked. Sometimes when she had been hiding from her father in the little triangle formed by the couch shoved up against the wall, she would hold one of her mother's old handmade clay figurines, a little pig, an elephant, a harbor seal. Close her eyes and hold her breath and she could feel them move, come alive just for her, right there in the palm of her hand. And they would whisper to her, you will be all right, you're not alone, you are a miracle. So now Chance closed her eyes, laid her hands upon the face and concentrated. Chance was patient, she waited a long time, but the lady refused to speak. Maybe it only worked when it was something her mother had made, Chance thought. Maybe this was her mother's way of speaking to her from beyond the grave. But quiet or no, Claire liked the face in the box. The lady looked so kind, so gentle, and she sure did look like she had something to say, but that she would take her own sweet time to say it. Chance wondered, maybe she remained mute because she was broken. What if she brought up some of the glue from her craft box, she could piece her back together. Chance turned her attention to the paper surrounding the sculpture, one after another. She smoothed them out against her thigh, sticky with sweat. She tried to make out the words, but though Mammal insisted on speaking Cajun at home, Chance was still learning to read and write in French. But she sounded the words out as best she could. One paper seemed to be an old grocery list, she recognized a few words, a rico ver, guajo, com de terre. A handful of scraps appeared to be phone messages, receipts, rough sketches of faces and hands, a list of measurements. And then she spied the letter. It wasn't much of a letter as far as letters go. It had been torn in two, but Chance rifled through the box and found the second part. The halves were easy enough to match. The calligraphy set it apart from the other scraps. The writing was slanted and dramatic, hard to read. The ink had faded to an earthy sepia tone, and the paper yellowed, as though over the years the two hues had reached out to each other, trying to merge. The heavy paper had been folded once and dated fancies fafier, no year, no context, no address on the letter. Written in French it said, my love, my dearest, Olivier has agreed to help. We can wait no longer. We must act. I will be waiting. Take nothing with you. In a different handwriting, less sure with ink splotches, as though written by someone accustomed to holding a pen, were the words, he will never let me go. Chance turned the paper over, then emptied the wooden crate, searching for more, but that was all there was. Her hand shook as she reread the letter, sounding out the words. It was something special. She was sure. Maybe this was it, Chance thought. Maybe this was the secret, the special purpose for which she had cheated death. Tell me again, maman. Tell me about my mama. When the car went off the road, why didn't I die too? The Lord's got something special planned for you, Chance. You mark my words. You're a miracle shot. Don't you forget it. Those last words were her grandmother speaking to her. Of course. I don't know how you knew this, but that was the favorite part for me of that book. Oh, that's wonderful. That was absolutely my favorite part. So I have a question, because I kept reading after that, of course, and how do you mesh the backstory of Chance as a little girl and her adult adventures in Paris? You know, I think that Chance, and she also goes by Claire now, but Chance was her nickname when she was small. And she did have this very tragic beginning where her mother drove off the road and it was perhaps a suicide or perhaps not, but Chance was saved. And so her grandmother and then her father turns out to be an alcohol abuse of alcoholic. So she goes to live with her grandmother, and her grandmother keeps assuring her that she was saved her reason that she had something special to offer. So then when we see her as an adult, we first meet Claire when she's working in Chicago, and she has a lucrative job. She's been able to help her family. Her family's a very working class family, so she's been able to help them with a very good job in Chicago, and she's happy about that. But I think part of her has always felt that she was actually saved for a reason, that when her grandmother kept telling her that there was something special about her. And so when we first meet her, she doesn't know what that is. She doesn't know whether she's special and whether she has something more to offer. And I just like the idea that this that this figure and also I should mention that the Lancaneux de la Sain, which is the name of the face that she's found, this face from France is actually very well known in France. It's an actual face. Oh, it really is? Yes, it is. It's a very, very famous hanging that a lot of people hung on their walls because everyone was curious as to who she was, this woman. She was a very mysterious woman, and they called her like the Mona Lisa of the Sen because she has this little smile. But she's hung in the studio of people who make death masks. So the assumption was that she killed herself or was killed. And she drowned in the sin. So they call her the unknown woman of the sin. Anyway, so when Claire finds this face, she thinks, Oh, maybe this is the thing that I'm really meant to, especially when she goes back as an adult and she sees the face again. And she thinks, Oh, you know, this captivated her when she was young, and maybe she should go and see where this face is from. It's from Paris, and it has a maker on it. So she actually decides to track it down. And then when she gets to France, she realizes that it's just it's really quite mass produced. And it's not that unusual this face. And yet she does look into the story of who the woman might have been. And then that's that's the backstory that we have in this book is the story of the woman. I love that book. So you're going to read again for us, this is going to be a little bit of a different tone. Yes. What will you be reading now? Yeah, I thought it would be fun to read a little from one of my mysteries, because they are different, a different tone. My mysteries tend to be pretty fun and funny. And they, of course, they they deal with murder. So, you know, there's always that. But and this is just a short section. And it's actually not about the mystery per se, but it's one of the things I really enjoy about about writing things here in San Francisco or in the Bay Area is that I get to learn so much about local history. So this was a chance. And actually, I was, I base I base this book, it's called A Ghostly Light. And I based it on a an actual lighthouse that's off the point of Richmond. And it has a Victorian house on it. And it's just a fascinating place called East Brother Lighthouse. So I was investigating, you know, who who the keepers were who lived there and that sort of thing. So in and in the story, of course, the protagonist, Mel Turner, has gotten herself, she's a she does. She remodels old homes. So she's a it's the haunted home renovation series. And she renovates old homes. And then she has not too long ago discovered that she sometimes finds ghosts behind the walls. So that's, that's part always part of the mystery. The mystery is always very human. The murder is very human. But there's there's often a little ghostly presence. So so this one in this case, she's been hired to renovate this old lighthouse that's on an island here in the San Pablo Bay, which part of the San Francisco Bay. And then she's she's investigating the family that had lived there before because she thinks she saw something. She thinks she saw a woman in the tower in a lighthouse tower. So now she's speaking, she's at an archive in San Francisco, a historical archive. And she's speaking to a librarian named Trish. Then Trish will be speaking first. To me, the most interesting aspect of Lighthouse Island doesn't have to do with the architecture. But the fact that for many years the lighthouse keeper was a woman, a woman lighthouse keeper, as in my ghostly apparition interesting. She nodded. Was that common? I wouldn't say it was common exactly, but it certainly wasn't unknown, Trish said, warming to her subject. Back in the day, lighthouse keeping was one of the few professions women could perform that paid them the same as their male counterpart. Are we talking back in the 19th century? As far back as that, she said with a nod, many years before women had the right to vote in the United States, an impressive few were landing federal positions as light keepers. Several female lighthouse keepers in the Great Lakes, for instance, even had lower paid male assistants working under them, which was virtually unheard of at the time. That's fascinating. How did a woman even become a lighthouse keeper? Did they just respond to ads or most for the wives or sometimes the daughter of a keeper? The skills required for lighthouse keeping are very specific. Not only did keepers have to have knowledge of the lamps and the clockworks, but they also needed the dedication and grit it took to live in isolated harsh locations battered by winds and rain. And the bravery to climb the tower during a storm and scan the water is looking for trouble. Most times the official male keepers were assisted by their wives, especially when there wasn't an official assistant keeper. And for instance, when they were sick or as they grew unable to climb the steps, that sort of thing. Upon the keeper's death, his wife or daughter sometimes applied to take over. They could demonstrate they had the skill and experience to do the job since they were already there. So they chose to stay on despite the isolation. Just like the man, a lot of those women wound up keeping the lighthouse the rest of their lives. I suppose it can be addictive, that kind of solitude and beautiful views to boot. A wistful note came into her voice. I think I would do quite well, frankly, as long as I had enough books. And that reminds me of one thing I read that lighthouses had their own little lending library of sorts, a box of all sorts of books, novels, poetry, the Bible, would be delivered by the regular supply belt or the tenderships. After a few months, they would swap out the box for a new one. A lighthouse bookmobile. How cool is that? I used to love the bookmobile when I was a kid. So can you tell me anything about the woman who kept the bay light on lighthouse islands? This is what I'm telling you. There was some information on her in the stolen file. I could practically see the wheels turning and Trisha's head as she stared at her computer monitor, clicking her mouse furiously. I'm sure I could dig up some names and dates if you could give me a little time. But boy, it steams me that somebody would steal that file. What's the deal? We digitize as much as we can, but scanning everything in the collection is a huge project and it's not as if the historical society is rolling in money. Those files always have tidbits of information not found elsewhere. Newspaper clippings, archival notes, ephemera we haven't had time or resources to upload. What this society needs is a sugar daddy. Wait, here she is. I remember because the names were so interesting and so apt. From 1899 to 1905, the official keeper of the bay light was George Vigilance. The job then went to his wife, Ida. Did they have any children? According to this, they have one son, Franklin Prescott Vigilance, but I remember now. Remember what? He let out a sigh. There was a tragedy. Their young son disappeared and George had an accident while looking for him and died. The boy disappeared, probably drowned. It was a common hazard as one might expect on an island, but young Franklin's body was never recovered. And his father George died while looking for him. According to the report filed with the lighthouse authority, his wife, Ida, said that George was working on the clockworks at the top of the tower when he thought he spied little Franklin's red and white striped shirt on the shoals. He ran to find him, but in his haste tripped and tumbled down the lighthouse steps, all the way from the top, raking his neck. Ida found him at the bottom of the stairs. There was a lot of that going around. Trish looked up from the computer and blinked. And Ida took over after George's death. I asked. She nodded. Ida Vigilance was the official keeper for the next 10 years. I was betting that Ida had stayed on at the baylight a lot longer than that. I suppose it wasn't absolutely certain that the vision I'd seen at the top of the tower was Ida Vigilance, but it made sense. And I was going to assume the little boy who pointed to the tower was Ida and George's young son, Franklin. So Ida remained on Lighthouse Island alone, true to her name and ever vigilant, lighting her lamp, mourning her husband, and searching for her missing son for 10 years. That would be enough to drive the most down-to-earth person around the bend. There you go. Right way to end. Well, it was such an honor having you read to us. Having the writer read their own words is amazing. I don't think I'm the best reader, so I appreciate that. It was really a wonderful experience. So thank you. Well, thank you. Well, that's all the time we have today. I want to thank Juliet Blackwell for being my special guest, our broadcast engineer, our floor manager, and J. Fidel, our executive producer. A special mahalo to our underwriters. And thank you for joining us. Books, books, books. We'll be back in two weeks. Until then, read, write, and create your world. Book, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.