August 25, 2025 • 68 mins
Step into the smoky jazz scene of prohibition era 1920s, near the Mississippi River—where secrets simmer, spirits whisper, and one woman refuses to stay silent.
In this episode of Spirit Speakeasy, I sit down with medium, musician, and mystery writer Carolyn Marie Wilkins. We dive into her newest gripping supernatural mystery novel, Murder at the Wham Bam Club—a tale laced with intuition, injustice, and jazz.
Carolyn shares how her background in mediumship and music inspired this unique story.
We explore:
– How intuition guides her characters (and her writing process)
– Why she wrote a heroine who challenges authority and listens to her inner voice
– What it means to speak up in oppressive times
– The hidden spiritual messages layered into the novel for the reader
– The role music and metaphysics play in both fiction and life
– What most aspiring writers get wrong & her best advice
If you love a good mystery with a metaphysical twist, or you're curious about the intersections of jazz, justice, and the unseen world—this conversation will inspire and intrigue you.
Show Notes:
Bio: Carolyn Marie Wilkins is the author of Murder At The Wham Bam Club, the first in the Psychics and Soul Food Mystery Series. Her other books include Death at a Séance, Melody for Murder and Mojo for Murder. Carolyn’s stories have appeared in Festive Mayhem and Wolfsbane: Best New England Short Stories of 2023.
She is a Professor at Berklee College of Music Online and has represented her country as a Jazz Ambassador for the U.S. State Department.
An initiated priestess of Yemaya, the African goddess of motherhood, Carolyn is also a psychic medium and Reiki Master.
For more about Carolyn, visit her web page or socials here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carolyn.wilkins.3114/
Instagram: @Jemaya7
Website: https://www.CarolynWilkins.com
To download the Free songs Carolyn created as she was writing: https://resonantwisdomservices.bandcamp.com/album/murder-at-the-wham-bam-club
Get Carolyn’s first episode on Spirit Speakeasy:
Mediumship Meets Jazz with Carol Wilkins' Akashic Trance Piano Healing
Listen now: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2084888/episodes/11835507
Watch the video: https://www.joyfulmedium.com/blog/mediumship-meets-jazz
Join me Live on Zoom for my Free Monthly Community Healing session! You'll receive a blend of Reiki (Energy Healing), Chakra & Aura Clearing & Balancing, Color Healing, Grounding, Cord Cutting, Trance Medium Healing & more.
Get all the details & Sign up now to receive the link and replay for the next session! https://www.joyfulmedium.com/Events
Get Joy's Free "Sign Magnet" 3 Day Mini Course HERE https://www.joyfulmedium.com/sign-magnet
Joy's Website: www.joyfulmedium.com
Instagram: @JoyfulMedium
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Facebook: @JoyfulMedium
Facebook Group: Joy's Soul Spa
YouTube: Psychic Medium Joy Giovanni
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:01):
Joy, hey, beautiful soul, welcome to spirit
speakeasy. I'm Joy Giovanni,joyful medium. I'm a working
psychic medium, energy healerand spiritual gifts mentor. This
podcast is like a seat at thetable in a secret club, but with
mediums, mystics and thespiritual luminaries of our
time. So come behind the velvetropes with me and see inside my
(00:24):
world as I chat insider stylewith profoundly gifted souls, we
go deep, share juicy stories,laugh a lot, and it wouldn't be
a speakeasy without greatinsider secrets and tips. You
might even learn that you havesome gifts of your own so step
inside the spirit. Speak Easy.
Hey, beautiful soul. Welcome infor another episode of spirit
(00:46):
speakeasy. Today, we have anincredible guest. She was one of
our first guests ever on thepodcast, and she is a dear
friend of mine. I'm gonna givejust a quick intro, because I
want to get right to ourconversation. Today, we're going
to be talking with Carolyn MarieWilkins, and she has a new book
that has just come out calledMurder at the wham bam club. It
(01:09):
is a period piece set in the20s, the roaring 20s, and it is
such a fun murder mystery withmediumship and so much more
woven in. So we're going toreally dive in and talk about
her book. But I also asked her alot of questions for anyone who
is an aspiring writer of anykind, if you feel like you've
(01:29):
got a book in you, or just likeshort stories, or just wondering
how the writing process works. Iasked Carolyn so many questions
about all of that, and she evenhas some exciting additional
little extras to share with us.
So let's dive right in as weopen up this conversation about
murder at the wham bam club withthe incredible author, medium,
(01:53):
jazz musician and my friendCarolyn Wilkins, hey, beautiful
souls, welcome back, or welcomein for another episode of spirit
speakeasy. I am not gonna wasteany time before introducing our
guest today. Those of you thathave been with the pod since day
one will remember her as one ofour inaugural guests. She's an
(02:15):
incredible friend, Miss Carolyn.
Marie Wilkins is the author ofmurder at the wham bam club, the
first in the psychic and SoulFood mystery series. Her other
books include death at a seance,which was super good. Melody for
murder and Mojo for murder.
Highly recommend all of them.
Carolyn's stories have appearedin festive mayhem and Wolf Spain
for the Best New England shortstories of 2023 she is a
(02:39):
professor at Berkeley College ofMusic online, and has
represented our nation as a jazzambassador for the US State
Department, an initiatedpriestess of yamaya, the African
goddess of motherhood. Carolynis also a psychic medium and a
Reiki Master. There's nothingthis woman cannot do. Help me
welcome Miss. Carolyn MarieWilkins, how are you?
(03:04):
Oh my gosh, Joy. It's such a joyand a pleasure to see you. How
fun. Thank you for having me onthe show.
I'm so grateful to you for beinghere. So last time you were with
us, we learned all about yourhistory, how you became a
medium. You as a jazz musician,you did a wonderful share of
(03:25):
trance, mediumship, pianohealing for us. So highly
recommend everyone. I'll link itin the show notes. People can go
back and check it. You hadalready been an author, and now
you have a new book that's justreleased that I am so excited to
talk about.
Exactly well, I have to say, andjust in case, yeah, there it is.
(03:47):
It's called Murder at the whambam club. And I have to say, I'm
super excited. It's kind ofrolled together all of my
interests of being a psychic,loving jazz writing and, of
course, a murder mystery. Whatcould be more fun?
(04:11):
Well, that's, I think, one ofthe most beautiful things, just
knowing you over all theseyears, the way that you weave
all of your experience. And Iwant to really just let everyone
know I'm going to try my verybest not to give any spoilers
about the book, but we'll divein enough that I'm hoping
everyone will get as excitedabout it as I am. I just
finished it. I want to start bykind of talking about Miss Nola,
(04:36):
who is the heroine of our story,and she really is a
representation of such acompelling mix of like intuition
and intellect and resilience.
How did her character first cometo you and how much of her is
drawn from your own lifeexperience as a musician, a
woman of color, a medium I wantto know everything.
(04:57):
Oh, joy. What a great question.
Question, she's a greatcharacter. Well, I she, I wanted
to write a psychic characterbecause, of course, I'm a
psychic, but at the same time, Idid not want her to be like a
super psychic, where she kneweverything. And, you know,
(05:18):
because then there would be nomystery to the book. She would
know everything. She'd know whoall the bad guys were, and
right, it would sort of not beany fun. So she had to be this
combination of both knowing, butat the same time innocent a
little bit and looking, seeking,plus she's only she's not quite
(05:45):
21 she's like 20 and a half orsomething. So she's fairly
young, but she's also feisty.
She did run away from her smalltown and elope with a soldier
(06:06):
during, uh, right before WorldWar One, but her husband was
killed in the war, and now she'sback home in the small town
where she grew up, where whichshe kind of likes, but she kind
of doesn't like. She's lived inHarlem up in New York City.
(06:31):
She's seen the bright lights inthe big city. So she's a little
mix of both a home girl, butalso with a little bit of
sophistication and a lot ofspice to her. She's not afraid
to sort of speak her mind whenthings bother her, and sometimes
(06:54):
that gets her in a little bit oftrouble also
well, and I will say, just foreveryone who hasn't read it yet,
the way that it's written, youreally get that flavor and that
sense that she doesn't have allthe experience in the world, but
she has, you know, moved awayfrom home at one point. That's
where we're finding her in thestory too, as we step into it,
(07:15):
will you just kind of set thatscene a little bit with the time
period and, you know, you justsaid that her husband has just
passed away. When we're findingher, she's just kind of returned
home in this really crossroadsof a circumstance for her. Talk
a little bit about why you're soimpassioned about that time
period, and also just set thescene for us a
(07:36):
little bit. Yes, so the book isset in the roaring 20s, okay,
just almost exactly 100 yearsago, 1922 and for those who
maybe are not so deep into thehistory, they had just passed,
(07:56):
Congress had just passed a lawcalled prohibition that made
liquor illegal. They made allthe bars close. You could not
serve liquor and stuff, and theend result of this was that
people drank more than ever. Thegoal had been to eliminate
(08:20):
drinking and stuff. Butsometimes when you ban things,
it makes it actually worse. Soeveryone and their brother was
breaking the law in some way oranother. People were making like
whiskey in their bathtub. Therewere all these places called
(08:40):
speakeasies, where you would goto get your illegal alcohol. And
along with the illegal alcohol,many of these places also had
jazz, which was the hot Cha,hotcha music of the time, right?
Well,and as we're recording this the
Michael B Jordan movie sinners,was just out at the beginning of
(09:02):
the summer, and that's very jukejoint. Absolutely no, yes. Very
similar, right?
Very similar. I that was afortuitous circumstance. Who
knew that how that movie wouldcome out, and that movie also
has a lot of African folk magic,if you will, some of the magical
(09:28):
practices reading the bones andhoodoo, which is also in my book
as well. So my character comesback to this town, which was
kind of a sleepy, boring townwhen she grew up there, but now,
due to the fact that the war isover, there's a boom in need for
(09:54):
labor, and a lot of AfricanAmericans are moving up from.
The south to come live in thisplace, which is at the very tip
of Illinois, the very southerntip, right on the Mississippi
River. And in this place calledagate, which is, by the way, a
(10:15):
fictional place. Don't look forit on the map, because it's not
there. It's kind of a crossbetween k row, Illinois, which
is a real place, andEdwardsville, Indiana, which is
another real place, but it'sthis, I made a fictional place,
but folks are moving up there,and they're looking for work,
(10:39):
and they're coming in droves,and with them, they are bringing
both a labor force, but it'salso with them is coming naive
young girls who have never hadany experience In the city, and
(11:00):
they maybe, you know, 1415,years old, and they've just been
in the country, and now theymoved to the city, and where you
have that kind of population andthat level of illegal activity,
you also have crime, and youhave these pimps who were
(11:21):
basically seducing young girlsand then turning them into
prostitutes. So all of this isgoing on so the town is not
nearly as sleepy and boring asit was when Nola grew up there.
On the other hand, it's also alot more dangerous, and there
(11:46):
are gangsters, and there's rumrunners and just a whole lot of
crazy stuff there. SoI have to say, I one of the
things I love about this book asI was I told you, I use an app
that reads the book out loud tome, just because it helps me
process, and it allows me to usesome of my gifts and see the
pictures myself like an oldfashioned read does. And I just
(12:08):
felt like this book is such ajewelry box of all these
beautiful, different, you know,you were saying you've got the
beautiful, you know, boom ofindustry. But then you've got
the underbelly that's coming in,and then you have this
incredible, very fiery jazzcomponent, and the way you use
the language is reallyrevealing. And I mean, sometimes
(12:31):
very sharp, sometimes verymoving. There's, you know,
themes of justice and race,inequality and mediumship and
just the dynamics ofrelationships. So it's, it's so
layered that I really love it,because, like, just like you
were saying, all of these thingsare happening at once, and it
(12:51):
doesn't feel overwhelming at allin the writing, it's just so
nuanced that I like, I'm so I'mso proud of you. Thank you,
Joy. Thank you so much. And,yeah, you really got it. And at
the same time that all thiscraziness is going on, my
(13:14):
character also works part timeat a catering company. She's
moved back home to live with heraunt, who is a bonafide hoodoo
practitioner, what they call aconjure woman. And if you saw
sinners, you know how the womanin the movie kind of threw the
(13:36):
bones and did that, her aunt isthat kind of a woman.
These are some of the things Ilove, because I know some of
this work. And as you're I'mlike, Oh, that is, that's right.
Like, that's because you do havethe personal experience and the
understanding of all of it. So Ilove the way you weave it in, in
(13:57):
such, like, a realistic way.
Yes, thank you. And so mycharacter works for this
catering company, and becauseshe works at catering company,
first of all, I get to talkabout food, which is always fun,
right? And as caterers, they canenter a lot of different homes
(14:20):
and different places where theyotherwise would not be able to
go. So among the places whereshe goes to work as a caterer is
a woman who is a very wealthyspiritualist. We had to have a
spiritualist in there because,you know, we're psychic mediums.
(14:42):
We had to do it. Butspiritualism was also very much
on the rise in the 1920s why?
Because they had just had a war,and so many young men had been.
Taken from the planet so young,right? And people were sort of
(15:03):
searching for answers. And amongthe things that happened was
that they went to see mediumsand psychics to try to get
answers. And some of thosemediums were ethical, and some
of them not so much. So that isalso a piece of the story as
(15:25):
well.
Well, okay, this brings me toone of my many questions on my
list. You're a medium, as weknow, and Nola, as you
mentioned, is clearly gifted,and starting to uncover some of
those gifts herself. How did youapproach writing the spiritual
or psychic elements? So theyfelt really authentic, like I
(15:48):
was saying to our actualmediumship experience, but also
grounded and not too over thetop for readers that you know,
maybe it's not their vein ofbelief, for example,
that's a great question, and Ionly another medium would ask me
that question, because yes, I'msure you have also read books or
(16:13):
seen movies in which thecharacters were psychic or
whatever, and they would dostuff, and you're like, really,
yeah, not so much. Man, exactly,you know. So I wanted to make it
realistic, yet at the same time,I found that in order to move
(16:36):
the story along and bring thedrama we couldn't have, maybe,
like when you do a realmediumship reading, you get some
right answers, but you also getsome wrong answers, and you
stumble around a little bitbefore you're able to bring the
(16:57):
message and all that in. In thiscase, I had to have the
characters get to the pointpretty quickly, because we have
to move the story forward. But Idid try to bring at least some
realism, and for Nola,particularly, because, as I say,
(17:21):
she's an apprentice psychic.
She's not a dental psych, yeah,she's not a full on 100% you
know, bad character. You knowshe's, yeah, she's still
unfolding. Yeah,unfolding. So you
and I are both trance mediums,and I really loved how you
(17:43):
described so we do get toexperience a couple different
versions of seance in the story,yes, and in one of those
experiences, the way it'sdescribed is as though the
person was moving through water,and it was though they were deep
underwater in a place ofProfound Darkness, and then All
of the sudden they had anawareness of the emotions as
(18:03):
they were channeling a messagethat felt very real to me as a
trans medium. So yes,I loved that. Yes, yes. I think
if you've ever been there anddone it, I know you've probably
had experiences like that, and Iwas happy to be able to share
those little glimpses as well.
(18:26):
Yeah,well, and the psychic side,
obviously, is not the only pieceof it. It just is. I think it's
a connector to the murder pieceof it. But music, jazz plays so
much of a part of this, not justonly as a metaphor, but also
within the structure. And I lovethe way that the music really
pulses through this book, and weeven get to I feel like I'm
(18:47):
hearing it and feeling it whenthe artists are playing or
expressing their music withinthe story, which is so cool, and
the music almost acts like thissecond heartbeat for me when I'm
reading the story orexperiencing the story. And in
what ways did jazz you know,from your perspective as a very
profound jazz artist yourself,both the sounds and the symbols?
(19:11):
How did that influence I knoweverything from like the rhythm
and pacing of the book to likethe emotional arcs of the story,
because it's really deep inthere.
Thank you. And I think at leastsome of that just comes because
it's who I am. But that said, Ireally wanted to make
(19:33):
particularly the scenes in thewham bam club. And by the way,
my publisher did the cover artfor this. Okay, just amazing to
me. Very cool. It captures it.
But there's such a life and avibrancy in the club and in the
(19:53):
music and then the Inter.
Interaction between themusicians and the audience,
people shouting out to themusicians, musicians shouting
back. All of this is makes itvery vibrant, and I will say
(20:16):
also that I did write threesongs that
are sort of go along withthe book. And okay, I was gonna
ask you about this, so I'm gladwe're talking Yes, I'm gonna
give you a link to share withyour awesome listeners, because
(20:39):
they can download the songs, andthey were just kind of jazzy
songs that, to me, felt likethey, well, one of them
actually, the lyrics areactually in the book. And then I
took those lyrics and put themto music, and then I wrote a
couple of other ones as wellcrazy songs in that
(21:04):
book, roaring 20s, well.
And this was the thing, youknow, it was in many ways, very
similar to our own era, in thatpeople were just letting it all
hang out. They've been through awar. By the way, there'd been a
big pandemic, much like ourpandemic. They had the great flu
(21:30):
of 1918 and like 1000s of peopledied. And I think the general
mood was, we're just gonna partytill we drop, because who knows,
you could drop anyway, so youmight as well drop while you're
partying, you know, well,and that's one of the many
layers, is this dichotomybetween, I mean, just like you
(21:52):
said, how we have it now, thestrict, kind of religious right
of it, and then the if we'regoing To be doing this moonshine
and being in this place, we'renot supposed to be at a time.
We're not supposed to be hereanyways, like, let's really let
it loose, you knowexactly. And so you had, and
there was also pretty not in,not in agate where I write this.
(22:16):
It was not a legal separation ofthe races, but by custom.
Basically, black people stayedin one part of town. They
shopped only in certain stores.
They did only certain things.
White people stayed over here.
(22:39):
They went to their places. Butin places like the wham bam
club, it was all bets are off,because it was all completely
illegal anyway, and people mixedand mingled with in this case,
fatal results. But I'm not goingto get to we don't want to spoil
(23:04):
it. And these are some of theundercurrents that you know,
anyone who's sensitive enough oreven just paying any sort of
attention knows that we havethese undercurrents in our
current society, and you do sucha great job of, yes, the way
that they're marinated in aslike an underpinning of what's
happening in the book. It reallybeautifully weaves into its
(23:28):
proverbial tapestry. Itconfronts systemic racism,
police corruption, genderedviolence in a way that feels
somehow both timely andtimeless. So I don't know how
you're doing that. Is there aparticular news event, or
something that struck you in apersonal story, or a moment in
history that became almost likethe spark to ignite you into
(23:50):
writing this book?
That's a great question. I'vealways been interested in
history, and African Americanhistory in particular, and my
family in this period in the1920s when I had done some
research on my family, Idiscovered that both my father's
(24:15):
people and my Mother's peoplehad lived in Evansville, Indiana
at this exact same time. Theydidn't know each other then, but
they were there, and Evansvillehad a lot of the same crazy
(24:36):
corruption and wildness that Iwrite about. And so I've often
thought, I wonder what theythought. I wonder how they dealt
with it. I wonder, you know, youtry to imagine, like your
grandparents, as people in their20s, what would it have been
(24:57):
like to have moved my grandma?
Mother moved there from, like,Alabama. What would that have
been like, you know, to hit thatwas it, you know. So I've always
been really curious about aboutthat time period. And, yeah,
it's just curiosity. I guess,not only are
(25:19):
you incredible, but you havethis really incredible history
of family people that areconnected with you are any of
the musicians in your lineage,part of that two family line
that was in that area aroundthat time?
Yes, they my grandfather'speople. They actually were not
(25:42):
so much in Evansville. They werea little bit to the I think it's
the East they were, but theywere in southern Indiana. And
yes, I have one, I guess he's agreat uncle who actually was
pretty famous jazz musician whoplayed with Count Basie. If you
(26:08):
know who that is, he's like ahorse, famous band leader.
Anyone doesn't they need to lookup
Count Basie. Exactly. It's thebare minimum you need to know.
Somy uncle, Ernie Wilkins actually
did the arrangements for CountBasie and played saxophone with
him for many years. So yeah, allof those kind of things, I've
(26:31):
always felt a deep connection,both just because I'm a
musician, but also because it'san ancestral connection as well.
So cool.
Did you feel like when you werewriting and kind of exploring
and expanding the charactersthat you were almost blending or
(26:52):
tuning in for the souls of theloved ones in your line and
around that time period,I definitely felt supported and
you know, as a medium, you knowhow that is, you're starting to
write, and they're talking toyou and and they definitely let
me know they wanted certainthings. And on the other hand,
(27:16):
they let me know they did notwant certain things, so yeah, in
terms of how I was going toportray the characters, and that
there should always becompassion for all the
characters, even the worst ones,I noticed that you showed layers
(27:36):
to even the most challenging.
That'sright, that's that was very
important to them and but I dowant to say to your listeners,
we've been saying all this heavystuff about the book. I feel
like it's exciting. It isexciting, yeah, but I also want
to let them know that the bookis actually really light
(28:01):
hearted, and it's a murdermystery. It's not a there's no
like, really blood and gore.
Obviously, people get killed,but they're
killed. Things happen outside ofour awareness as the reader, we
(28:22):
just know that this hashappened, but we don't have a
lot of the thank yous and cuesabout there's no no
worries on that front body partsand you know, and it's not, it's
not that kind of book. It's andthere is at the heart of it, a
puzzle to be solved, and you thereader, have the opportunity to,
(28:46):
like any good mystery, followalong and find the trail of
clues that I left and see if youfigure out who did it. You know,
well,that is part of the fun, as
we're kind of bouncing from, youknow, I always feel like we're,
more or less, for the most part,tagging along with Nola
everywhere she goes through thestory. And she's bouncing from
(29:08):
her, you know, the places she'svisiting and the friends she
knows there, and theconversations. And then there's
the, you know, undercurrents ofthings happening in the
background, and the, I feellike, yeah, like you said, with
any good murder mystery, it'syou're looking at this person,
and you're wondering if, oh,wait, are we supposed to be
looking over here? Is this tooobvious that? Yeah, so whales
are turning for sure, which is alot of fun. Well,
(29:32):
that's what I am glad to hear,that joy, because that is
definitely what I want. And yes,it has history, and yes, it has
drama, and it has all theseother things, but at the heart
of it, hopefully it's a fun andentertaining story that will
(29:52):
leave people smiling at the end.
Okay, well, you and I both.
Spent a good amount of our timein Boston. You're still there
for me, I feel like thosecomponents I was talking about,
the way it is in the book,there's there's the story
itself, right, this mysterywe're uncovering, and all the
(30:13):
components and all the players.
And I really feel like itreminds me of when I see a movie
about Boston or that takes placein Boston, that they get it just
right, the clothing is justright, and the accents are just
right. And the because it's allhappening all around and you
don't have to necessarily makeit center stage, but you just
notice it as part of the waythings are moving in the
(30:35):
background, the way this personlooks this way and not that way,
or can go here and not there.
And so I feel like it the all ofthose extra components that
layering really grounds us into,like a real scene is how it
feels. It doesn't feel like amade up place. It feels like
good a place that we've allheard about in stories or movies
or history or even watching, youknow, a lot of the documentaries
(30:58):
that have come up over theyears, and so I feel like we're
just getting to somehow enterthrough a little doorway into
this window of a world.
Well, that was my hope inwriting it. So thank you very
much. That really makes mehappy, because I think if you
talk to any author, this is whatwe want is that it's a fictional
(31:23):
world, but it needs to feel realwithin the boundaries that we
create, so that you the reader,can kind of really go in and
experience things You know. Sogreat. That's really good,
well, in a time period too, thatwe have some references for, but
(31:45):
the way it rounds out. And thenI think that the psychic and
seance component is just, itreally is such a cool way of
moving the story forward andallowing details to be revealed.
And so that part of it is, Ithink, really, really juicy.
Well, thank you so much. Ireally am so happy you enjoyed
(32:07):
it. I really did. I have someother questions that are more
like for those that are buddingwriters, because I feel like I
know in our audience, we have alot of I feel like so many
sensitives have some sort ofbook bubbling inside of us for
some period of time, whether weever decide to address it or
not. That's true. Yeah. So whatdo you feel like? I mean, you
(32:32):
have such a rich history withall of your undertakings that we
went through in your bio. Andthen there's even more than
that, is the truth. How did youdecide? Like, okay, it's time to
bring these stories to the worldthat are have clearly been
inside of you, even in theearlier books.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Great question.
Joy. I first, when I was firstwriting, I wrote as a little
(32:56):
kid, and then I went into music.
And as you know, when you gointo something like music or
athletics or whatever it is likethat you go so deeply that you
basically don't have time to doanything else. So for a long
(33:18):
time, I only just did music, andso I was teaching at Berkeley,
and Berkeley produces textbooksthat they sell, and they asked
me if I would write a Book toteach singers how to prepare for
(33:42):
playing in a in a band, right?
So I thought, well, oh, okay, Ican do that. So I wrote the
book. But what I found was itwas far more fun writing the
little hypothetical anecdotesand the little stories than it
was actually writing theexercises and the musical piece.
(34:04):
And I thought, oh, maybe this issomething I'd like to do. So
that was, like the first sort ofit gave me a permission to say,
oh, okay, maybe you can writestuff. And then I had a really
burning story inside that Iwanted to tell about my family,
(34:29):
and this was about mygrandfather, who was the very
first African American to servein the Labor Department as an
Assistant Secretary of Labor,and this was way back in 1954
under President Eisenhower, andhis experience in the government
(34:53):
was brief. It was in. Tense, andit didn't necessarily just end
in a bed of roses. And I hadalways wondered about what that
would have been like for him atthe time, he was one of maybe
(35:14):
two or three black people in theentire upper levels of the
federal government, which ispretty weird. You know, told you
guys, Carolyn has all kinds ofcool people that are the tops of
the tops her family. This iswhat I was talking about. I know
(35:35):
some of these stories so, but Soyou wrote that story of him, and
did the research and and all ofthat.
Exactly I did that. And thenthat emboldened me to write
another book, which I wroteabout the women in my family who
were all musicians. And I wantedto go incredible to the men,
yeah, well, and I wanted to tella woman's story. So that made me
(35:59):
go and do more research anddata. And after I finished those
two books, I was sick and tiredof writing about myself. I
didn't want to write anotherword about me. I wanted to,
yeah, I wanted to make stuff up.
So I'd always enjoyed murdermysteries, and so this is how I
got into writing murdermysteries. And as you mentioned,
(36:24):
I have written this is my fourthmurder mystery. But this one by
far, is my best book ever. Ihave to say I'm really happy
with it. I have a greatpublisher who's really helped
me. I had a great editor whohelped me go over it and stuff.
(36:48):
And so back to your question of,How did I first get the idea? I
think it was more I'd always hadthese stories within me, but I
did not think that I had theability to actually be a writer.
(37:09):
And it was only bit by bit as Istarted to actually write things
that I realized, hey, you can dothis.
Yeah, that's a really goodpoint. I mean, we don't know
until we at least give it a go.
And I love that, you know, maybeyou did start through a work
(37:30):
Avenue, which I think a lot ofus will be more willing to
undertake something if ourcareer is like, will you write
this? But, yeah, most of us havea hobby or a passion, or, you
know, some people, it's more onthe mythical, mystical side. For
you, it's murder mysteries. So Ithink it's a great doorway in
for anyone who's like, oh, Imight want to write, and you've
done all these short storiestoo. So someone could just start
(37:54):
even with a short story, right?
I would actually recommend that,if there are people out there
who like to write, first of all,I encourage you to not feel
like, Oh, this is for onlycertain people, or you need to
(38:17):
have some kind of degree inwriting before you can no just
write. Everybody has a story,and the deeper you get into your
own uniqueness, the moreinteresting your story will be.
(38:37):
There's a lot of technique towriting, which takes time and
practice, just like anythingelse, but the best way to get
started is just do it. You don'thave to wait for someone to give
you permission to do it, or takea workshop before you can do it,
(39:01):
I would say, just sit down,maybe have a journal. I don't
know if you're familiar withthere's a lovely book. It's many
years old by now, but still verygood, called the artists way by
Julia. Somebody gave me thatbook as a gift. It's a great
(39:21):
book.
It's a super popular book, butwhat she does is just kind of
give you encouragement to moveforward on your journey, if you
have sort of that inner creatorin you that's kind of hiding in
there. And one of hersuggestions is that you keep a
(39:43):
journal and that you makeyourself every day write three
pages. Just write and do not goback and read it and edit it and
just sit down, close your eyesall. Almost like automatic
writing and just write, becausewhat you're doing is you're
(40:06):
priming the pump, and prettysoon those three pages will
start to write themselves even,Oh, that's great. So to your
process, I guess one of thethings I was wondering is when
you write as a writer, because Ithink everybody does it maybe a
little bit their own way. Do youimagine kind of looking through
the eyes of the main character?
(40:28):
Do you take more of thatoverarching perspective,
sometimes called as the godperspective, or the I keep
thinking of The Truman ShowMovie, yeah? Like, yeah,
overarching perspective. Do youswap back and forth? How do you
like to do it? Mybooks have all been written in
the first person, so that's justbeen what I've done. Maybe the
(40:50):
next book, well, I can't I thesenext psychics and soul food.
There are going to be threebooks in this series, and by
contract, they all have to bewith the same character set.
And okay, that was one of myquestions. So that's so we're
(41:11):
going to hear more about Nolaand her adventures. More
about Nola. More about agate,Illinois. More about her aunt,
the hoodoo woman more to thewham bam club, the wham bam
club? Yes. So maybe after that,I may try writing in a more
(41:33):
omniscient narrator kind ofpoint of view, but I found the
first person to be for me thequickest and the easiest,
because it'd be like me tellingyou a story. I would be, well, I
did this, and then I did this,and, oh, you wouldn't believe
(41:54):
what happened to me. Thishappened.
Then you're just writing thatdown.
Do you have a sense of Do you doany sort of like character
development, where you have asense of the characters and
flush them out a little beforeyour writing? Or do you kind of
know who the characters are whenyou're sitting down to do the
overall story?
Yes, I do. I actually spentquite a bit of time with these
(42:17):
characters thinking about, youknow, who they were, I write up
a little bit, almost like alittle bio on that, especially
the major characters, yeah, whothey are, where they come from,
why they would act the way theydo, their little quirks and
(42:38):
ticks, you know, and especiallyif you're writing a series, you
want the characters to haveenough meat on their bones that
people aren't completely sick ofthem after the first book. They
need to be interesting, and Ibelieve they also need to have
(43:01):
room to grow. They need toevolve. You know?
Yeah, well, there's acontinuity. I think that needs
to be there. I always think ofit, I think because some of my
backgrounds in acting, so Ithink of it from like a script
reading perspective. And there'ssome techniques in acting when
you're going to read for acharacter, where you even if
it's not there technically, butI'm making up a backstory back
(43:22):
in the day, or thinking, youknow, how would they react to
this? Or what's their personalhistory? And it feels like the
characters have all of that,even though, of course, there's
not time in one book tounderstand all of their
background. We get enough of itand enough in the particularly,
I mean, I think with a lot ofthem, but I like Nola quite a
bit, so it's like you can youget other flavors of her, just
(43:45):
in her response to something ornon response to something. Do
you know what I mean? Thosecharacters feel really fleshed
out to me.
Oh, that's great. That was a bighope. Because for me, when I
read a mystery or I watch amovie or something, if I can't
really connect to thecharacters, if they don't feel
(44:07):
real to me. Sometimes there aresome genres in which the
characters are almost like papercutouts that just do things. You
know, he runs to the car anddrives it, and then he's chased
by 30 cars, and then they blowup something and but you never
(44:29):
really have a sense that this isreally a person with moods and
different feelings and things.
So for me, I prefer a morecharacter driven story. And as a
writer, I did spend a lot oftime making sure that my
characters felt authentic to me.
(44:53):
There's a depth to them. Yeah, Iknow what you're talking about.
Sometimes that feels reallysurfacey. I don't know. I don't
know how you magically managedto. Accomplish it in something
that's not 1000 pages to reallylike, get in there and make them
feel fully developed, but theythey certainly do. Is there
something that really surprisedyou most as you started to
(45:15):
uncover the characters? Did anyof them really take on a life of
their own in a way that youmaybe didn't expect as you're
adding the complexities orreveal something unexpected as
you wrote them.
Yes, yes, and I don't want tospoil anything. Yes, don't. No
spoilers, guys. ButI think particularly some of the
minor characters, the woman whohas the spiritualist runs the
(45:41):
seance there, she turns out tobe kind of an interesting
person, and not quite what youmight think at first.
Will we see more of her as well,I don't know. To be determined,
yeah, determined to be they'lldefinitely be more psychic stuff
(46:09):
that I can promise. But I thinkthe next book goes in a little
bit of a different direction.
Okay, so I don't want to say toomuch. It's, it's a little
different, the same, butdifferent. And this is, of
(46:31):
course, for all of you wantingto write people out there, this
is also a big challenge, becausewhen you come with the next book
in the series, it can't just belike the first book. It's got to
be different. And even thoughthe characters are the same,
(46:54):
they can't do the same thingsjust doing they have to evolve.
They have to grow. They have toand that is challenging for the
writer, because at the sametime, if you change them too
much, people are going to beWait a minute, you said, Nola
(47:15):
always ate chocolate ice creamafter and now you have her
eating like, strawberry, yeah,you know. So it's a, it's a,
it's a tight rope that you haveto walk.
We the audience do sometimes getattached to our characters being
a certain way. You know, I'malmost feeling like, I'm pretty
excited. I'm almost feelinglike, maybe we'll get some
(47:38):
version of, like, a murdermystery, White Lotus situation,
where we're going to differentdifferent places and experiences
with our girl, really? I mean,only 21 she got plenty of time
to she's still young. Yeah, didsomething in you? Did you get
the sense when you were writingthis one that like, Okay, this
is going to be a series. Is thatsomething that you just felt
(48:01):
inside, or was that more on thedecision end,
I wanted to make it a series.
First of all, if you're a writerand you're trying to sell
something, a series is a littlebit more saleable, because the
publisher hopefully, their hopeis that after they release this
(48:21):
one, people will want more Nola,and then they're going to want,
you know, the next book and thenext book and the next book. So
it's a win win for everyone thatsaid, you know, some people just
write one book and that's it,and they sell it, and that's it.
(48:42):
And then they go back and theycreate a completely different
book, and they and they do, youknow, but I wanted this to be a
group of three, and then we'llsee how it goes. So there will
be three psychics and Soul Foodmysteries with the same
characters, or at least the samemajor characters.
(49:08):
Yeah, so yeah, when I feel likeit's a perfect story to either
the way I think of it is likeeither for like a Sunday
reading, when you just want tohave a little lazy morning in
bed with a cup of tea, or ifyou're darting to appointments,
and, you know, we all get stuckin waiting rooms or lines, or
whether you have a digital or atangible copy to just kind of
(49:29):
like, okay, it's the kind ofstory that I felt like I could
slip in and out of and knowwhere I was and really get back
in there pretty easily, whichfor me, I really
like A lot. Yeah, I tried tomake it like that and also that
each chapter both wraps up alittle bit, but also hooks you
(49:52):
into the next chapter so theyshould follow. And that goes
back to I. Referred before tothe technique of writing. There
is a fair amount of technique toreally making a story flow, and
that's one of the challenges, tobe able to just let there be as
(50:18):
few impediments between thereader and the story as
possible. That's, that's myview, anyway,
is that something that you workout more in the editing on the
back end, because I've heardwriters say you just gotta
write, write it and don't likeyou said earlier, don't edit it
as you're doing it. Write it alland then pass it over to a great
(50:40):
editor and let them try to helpdesign some of the breaks and
omit some of the and then you goback and do a second round
yourself. Is that sort of how itworks for you? Well, it at
first, in order to sell thebook, you need to have be your
own very rigorous editor. AndI'm blessed to have a husband
who is also a really goodwriter, and he's also extremely
(51:04):
particular, so he went throughit a couple times. And then I
have other writer friends whoI've exchanged books with
they've read mine and I've readso I sent it out to like a small
group of beta readers who madesuggestions, and then I went
(51:30):
back and edited, and then I sentit to my agent, and She went
through it and edited, and thenI sent it to the publisher. He
edited, sent it back to me. Iedited, then I sent it to a
further, different level readerwho did another edit. And then
(51:55):
finally, they do a copy editwhere they go through and just
look for grammatical mistakes orgross inaccuracies. They checked
all my, you know, that was thefirst thing she said, Is this
agate a real place. I can't findit on the map. You know,
(52:20):
so funny. Yeah, I think there'sa lot of that part of it that
people maybe don't realize whenthey're entering in. It really
is a labor of love to createthis work into the world. It's
not, you know, like both thingscreative. It's not a few hours
long.
It's it took me five years, fiveyears, and part of that was that
(52:45):
I wrote it and then I was havingtrouble selling it, which is
another whole story, and it wasa long slog to find the right
agent who could appreciate thebook and behind the book, and
then she was able to get it infront of the publisher that I
(53:09):
currently have. Yeah, the rightpeople, but it's more than a
notion. And I will say, Sure, ifyou like to write. Writing is
sorry. I was just squeakingaround. Oh, no worries. I was
afraid it was me. Writing is notfor the faint of heart, and it
(53:33):
is also not for the impatient.
If you're an impatient personthat needs to see results right
away. Maybe you write, but youdon't write to be published.
Yeah, start there, because it'sa long, long thing, and that's
why to get back to your point.
(53:59):
If you feel like you want towrite fiction, think about
writing short stories. It's alot easier to get a short story
published. You mostly don't needan agent to submit your story to
magazines, and there are a lotof online magazines or
(54:21):
anthologies that have differentthemes, and they'll put out call
for submissions, and you canoffer your story there, and
that's a great way to share yourwork.
Yeah, I think it's differentprocess for everyone, and
sometimes it is thosebreadcrumbs as we move forward
(54:42):
and see if something's a goodfit for us. I do have just a
couple more questions about thebook and the process. You we
were amazing. You're so funny.
Yeah, I'm just excitedabout, I think it was, I think
it was phenomenal. I'm reallyexcited for the next one, of
course. And I knew I was like, Iwonder if Carolyn could tell. Us
anything about the next slide,but I feel like you already did
(55:04):
the spirit speed round. So wehad time for a little bit extra.
I had a couple of just kind offun questions. One of them, you
sort of answered already. It waswhen you write, do you look or
do you listen to music as you'reworking and as you're writing,
and if so, I was wondering ifthere's a piece of music you
(55:26):
don't piece of music that youreally relate to nola's
character.
Yeah, I wrote songs for thatpurpose, but I, because I'm also
a musician, I can't listen tomusic and do something else
(55:48):
interesting, yeah, because it'slike, I my mind gets involved
with the music. I start. Oh,well, I wonder why he used the
trumpet there instead of thesaxophone. Why did he go to that
chord change instead of here? OrI just, I can't just have the
(56:09):
music just be like background.
So when I write, I write, andthen when I do music, I I do
music. So they're like, kind ofseparate, um, but since part of
the book, there are literal songlyrics in the book, I thought it
(56:30):
would be fun, because they're atthe wham bam club, right? Yeah.
What are they listening to?
Well, naturally, they'relistening to blues. Some of
those lyrics are pretty gutbucket, pretty racy.
Yeah, it's very racy fun,unexpected
(56:50):
fun. And so when I wrote thoselyrics, I did, in my mind, hear
the music that would go underthem. And so that's why I did
end up recording three songsthat are related to the book
that you can download for free.
I'm going to give you the link.
(57:13):
I'm pretty good aboutthat, yeah, put it in the show
notes with your website. Icouldn't imagine you doing it
any other way, even when I wasreading the lyrics are hearing
them in the story. I was like,oh, there's definitely, you
definitely were hearing a songto this. And I'm sure even
ambiently, as you're goingthrough the the experience and
rereading it, I'm sure there'ssome version of soundtrack or
other things that are happening.
(57:35):
This is a strange question,maybe, but I hope it's a fun
one. If you could sit down atthe wham bam club for one night
only, spiritually or otherwise,who would you want at the piano
and who would you want to besitting next to you?
Oh, my goodness. Well, I'll tellyou what. There are some great
(57:57):
characters. I'm not going to gointo them. There are several
gangsters, including a kind ofhandsome, sexy one. There are a
couple of very corruptpoliticians. They might be
interesting. They probably couldtake you out for a good time.
(58:18):
But on the piano, I want to say,I want to be on the piano. I
want to play. And the band thatthey have at the WAM BAM Club is
a good band. Whatever elsethey've got going on, the music
is good. And I think would besuper fun to be, to be part of
(58:42):
that for like one night.
Well, and I think historically,we know through all the
documentaries that most jazzartists of the time were
incredible artists and also hadcomplicated other stuff. Well,
you put it very kindly. Yes,they were sometimes there was a
reason why musicians wereconsidered to be kind of along
(59:06):
with actors and any of thosekind of show folk. They were
pretty much the bottom of thebarrel. They were not this the
hoity toides of society by anymeans. Yeah, well, and
it's a little scandalous to evenbe there, so kind of to your
earlier point, yeah, it is thisstrange mix of unusual
(59:31):
bedfellows. Can we say that'swhat makes it fun? Yeah,
wouldn't be seen together, maybeon Main Street. But are none of
them can talk about who's thereand who's not there, because
they're not supposed to bethere.
Nobody's supposed to be there.
Whole place was completelyillegal, yet operating in broad
view of the law and all thatso well. And it sets it
(59:51):
perfectly for us to have Nola asthe prime investigator here.
Because, you know, sometimeswhen things happen in. And
places like this, maybe the maininvestigators are investigating
too hard and got to take on thecase ourselves.
There you go. Well, Joy, I thinkyou have captured the spirit of
it for sure.
(01:00:13):
Okay, just one more question foryou.
What isthe what is the kind of wind of
inspiration that's moving youtowards this next novel? Is
there a breezy vibe that you'refeeling as you move into it? Is
there more of like a mysteriousair that we can be expecting to
feel around the corner? Do youhave any thoughts on the on
(01:00:36):
that? Oh, what a greatquestion. They're so fun.
The truth is, the second bookhas already been written,
because that's the way the bookbusiness works. Who knew
for you, though five yearsthat's great. You got a lot done
(01:00:58):
in there. Yeah, the secondbook will come out this time
next year, so I will say that ithas the same characters, but
part of what really interestedme was some real life I almost
want to describe them as cultfigures. There's a little bit of
(01:01:24):
that going on in the book cultfigures of the 1920s Yeah. So
I'm not going to say too much,but perfect Nola is, as usual,
in the thick of things and up toher ears in trouble, so
(01:01:48):
accidentally getting herselfnominated for for things. Okay,
I have one final question, sure,nola's investigation requires
her to trust her inner voicedespite lots of external doubt,
and sometimes I think many of uscan struggle with that. What do
you hope readers take away aboutthings like self trust,
(01:02:10):
especially in the face ofeverything happening in that
story? And now, greatquestion. I did think about
this, and I did want her to be,to some degree, even though
she's a fictional character, Ido want her to be kind of an
inspiration, of speaking up forherself, being a little bit
(01:02:33):
feisty, not Falling for the Okeydoke, or just because some male
authority figure tells hersomething that she has to do it.
And I would hope that readerswould take away from that a
(01:02:55):
little feeling of feelingempowered and a little feeling
inspired, and like, yeah, yeah.
Women, even back then, evenunder oppressive conditions,
people can do amazing things.
And that's maybe that's a littlebit of a message.
(01:03:22):
I love it. Well. Thank you forsharing this work with us and
being willing to talk to us allabout it. Obviously, people can
findeverything@carolynwilkens.com
which I'll of course link in theshow notes. Where else can we
get this book? Is that the bestway is that the only way this
book, thanks to my wonderfulpublisher, this book is
(01:03:43):
available, as they say, whereverbooks are sold. You can go to
your local bookstore and requestthat they order it if they don't
have it. You can get it atAmazon. You can get it at Barnes
and Noble, you can get it allkinds of those places. And I
(01:04:08):
will mention also, there's an ebook available, and there's an
audio book, so joy if it wasn'tthat you had gotten a pre order
copy of the book. You couldactually have had a real human
read you the book. I would muchprefer. Are you reading the
(01:04:30):
book? No, it's an actress,interesting. Maybe I'm gonna re
listen to it. Listen well. Thisis the type of book I would re
listen to. I highly recommend,even if someone just likes
reading, or for travel or for afun gift, it's It's everything
you want it to be. It's sodelicious. And I really hope
that you will come back and tellus about the next
(01:04:52):
one before you are the best.
Thank you so much for having me.
I reallyappreciate it, and thanks for.
Shining your light and everyoneit is totally available right
now. Murder at the wham bam clubby Miss Carolyn Marie Wilkins,
thanks for shining your light.
Thank you. Well, what did youthink of that conversation with
(01:05:15):
amazing author, musician,medium, artist and friend
Carolyn Wilkins, murder at thewham bam club is such a fun,
exciting book. I highlyrecommend it, like I was saying,
whether you are in a waitingroom or having some kind of
travel or even just want to havea little relaxing time on a
Sunday morning, it is theperfect book for that. Murder at
(01:05:38):
the wham bam club is availablenow. Like Carolyn said, wherever
you get your books, and you canalso go to carolynwilkens.com
which I'll, of course, link inthe show notes. I will also link
those additional songs that shewas telling us about, that she
created as she was writing thebook, because there are some
songs actually in the book, sowe can hear the music itself.
(01:05:59):
And Carolyn is quite modest, butshe's an incredibly acclaimed
musician artist, among manyother accolades. So she's such a
special person, and I'm reallygrateful for her sharing her
time with us yet again on thepodcast. I'll also link that
other episode that she did,which was the Akashic Records
(01:06:21):
trance piano healing episode. Soyou actually receive a healing
in that episode with her pianomusic that she's channeling. So
that was a really coolexperience as well. And in that
episode, we talk all aboutCarolyn's mediumship, how she
became a medium, her history,and all of that part of her
story as well, so you can get toknow her even more. And for me,
(01:06:45):
that just makes anything I'mreading more delicious to get to
know the author. So she said,there is now an audio book, plus
the hard copy, plus the digitalversion, all available. Now you
can find themeither@carolynwilkins.com or
wherever books are sold. Andagain, I will link everything in
the show notes. I'm so gratefulfor you being here with me
today. Do you feel like you havea story inside of you that you
(01:07:09):
want to write? Do you just enjoyreading other people's works?
Are you starting to get astirring about maybe what's next
for you, or what your soul'scalling you to undertake? Stick
around, because I have so muchmore coming up in the fall,
exercises and opportunities andworkshops and some really fun
(01:07:30):
ways for you to start exploringsome gifts of your own. So as
always, thanks for being herewith me today. Big hugs. Lots of
love from inside spiritspeakeasy. You.
Joy, hey, beautiful soul, welcome to spirit
speakeasy. I'm Joy Giovanni,joyful medium. I'm a working
psychic medium, energy healerand spiritual gifts mentor. This
podcast is like a seat at thetable in a secret club, but with
mediums, mystics and thespiritual luminaries of our
time. So come behind the velvetropes with me and see inside my
(00:24):
world as I chat insider stylewith profoundly gifted souls, we
go deep, share juicy stories,laugh a lot, and it wouldn't be
a speakeasy without greatinsider secrets and tips. You
might even learn that you havesome gifts of your own so step
inside the spirit. Speak Easy.
Hey, beautiful soul. Welcome infor another episode of spirit
(00:46):
speakeasy. Today, we have anincredible guest. She was one of
our first guests ever on thepodcast, and she is a dear
friend of mine. I'm gonna givejust a quick intro, because I
want to get right to ourconversation. Today, we're going
to be talking with Carolyn MarieWilkins, and she has a new book
that has just come out calledMurder at the wham bam club. It
(01:09):
is a period piece set in the20s, the roaring 20s, and it is
such a fun murder mystery withmediumship and so much more
woven in. So we're going toreally dive in and talk about
her book. But I also asked her alot of questions for anyone who
is an aspiring writer of anykind, if you feel like you've
(01:29):
got a book in you, or just likeshort stories, or just wondering
how the writing process works. Iasked Carolyn so many questions
about all of that, and she evenhas some exciting additional
little extras to share with us.
So let's dive right in as weopen up this conversation about
murder at the wham bam club withthe incredible author, medium,
(01:53):
jazz musician and my friendCarolyn Wilkins, hey, beautiful
souls, welcome back, or welcomein for another episode of spirit
speakeasy. I am not gonna wasteany time before introducing our
guest today. Those of you thathave been with the pod since day
one will remember her as one ofour inaugural guests. She's an
(02:15):
incredible friend, Miss Carolyn.
Marie Wilkins is the author ofmurder at the wham bam club, the
first in the psychic and SoulFood mystery series. Her other
books include death at a seance,which was super good. Melody for
murder and Mojo for murder.
Highly recommend all of them.
Carolyn's stories have appearedin festive mayhem and Wolf Spain
for the Best New England shortstories of 2023 she is a
(02:39):
professor at Berkeley College ofMusic online, and has
represented our nation as a jazzambassador for the US State
Department, an initiatedpriestess of yamaya, the African
goddess of motherhood. Carolynis also a psychic medium and a
Reiki Master. There's nothingthis woman cannot do. Help me
welcome Miss. Carolyn MarieWilkins, how are you?
(03:04):
Oh my gosh, Joy. It's such a joyand a pleasure to see you. How
fun. Thank you for having me onthe show.
I'm so grateful to you for beinghere. So last time you were with
us, we learned all about yourhistory, how you became a
medium. You as a jazz musician,you did a wonderful share of
(03:25):
trance, mediumship, pianohealing for us. So highly
recommend everyone. I'll link itin the show notes. People can go
back and check it. You hadalready been an author, and now
you have a new book that's justreleased that I am so excited to
talk about.
Exactly well, I have to say, andjust in case, yeah, there it is.
(03:47):
It's called Murder at the whambam club. And I have to say, I'm
super excited. It's kind ofrolled together all of my
interests of being a psychic,loving jazz writing and, of
course, a murder mystery. Whatcould be more fun?
(04:11):
Well, that's, I think, one ofthe most beautiful things, just
knowing you over all theseyears, the way that you weave
all of your experience. And Iwant to really just let everyone
know I'm going to try my verybest not to give any spoilers
about the book, but we'll divein enough that I'm hoping
everyone will get as excitedabout it as I am. I just
finished it. I want to start bykind of talking about Miss Nola,
(04:36):
who is the heroine of our story,and she really is a
representation of such acompelling mix of like intuition
and intellect and resilience.
How did her character first cometo you and how much of her is
drawn from your own lifeexperience as a musician, a
woman of color, a medium I wantto know everything.
(04:57):
Oh, joy. What a great question.
Question, she's a greatcharacter. Well, I she, I wanted
to write a psychic characterbecause, of course, I'm a
psychic, but at the same time, Idid not want her to be like a
super psychic, where she kneweverything. And, you know,
(05:18):
because then there would be nomystery to the book. She would
know everything. She'd know whoall the bad guys were, and
right, it would sort of not beany fun. So she had to be this
combination of both knowing, butat the same time innocent a
little bit and looking, seeking,plus she's only she's not quite
(05:45):
21 she's like 20 and a half orsomething. So she's fairly
young, but she's also feisty.
She did run away from her smalltown and elope with a soldier
(06:06):
during, uh, right before WorldWar One, but her husband was
killed in the war, and now she'sback home in the small town
where she grew up, where whichshe kind of likes, but she kind
of doesn't like. She's lived inHarlem up in New York City.
(06:31):
She's seen the bright lights inthe big city. So she's a little
mix of both a home girl, butalso with a little bit of
sophistication and a lot ofspice to her. She's not afraid
to sort of speak her mind whenthings bother her, and sometimes
(06:54):
that gets her in a little bit oftrouble also
well, and I will say, just foreveryone who hasn't read it yet,
the way that it's written, youreally get that flavor and that
sense that she doesn't have allthe experience in the world, but
she has, you know, moved awayfrom home at one point. That's
where we're finding her in thestory too, as we step into it,
(07:15):
will you just kind of set thatscene a little bit with the time
period and, you know, you justsaid that her husband has just
passed away. When we're findingher, she's just kind of returned
home in this really crossroadsof a circumstance for her. Talk
a little bit about why you're soimpassioned about that time
period, and also just set thescene for us a
(07:36):
little bit. Yes, so the book isset in the roaring 20s, okay,
just almost exactly 100 yearsago, 1922 and for those who
maybe are not so deep into thehistory, they had just passed,
(07:56):
Congress had just passed a lawcalled prohibition that made
liquor illegal. They made allthe bars close. You could not
serve liquor and stuff, and theend result of this was that
people drank more than ever. Thegoal had been to eliminate
(08:20):
drinking and stuff. Butsometimes when you ban things,
it makes it actually worse. Soeveryone and their brother was
breaking the law in some way oranother. People were making like
whiskey in their bathtub. Therewere all these places called
(08:40):
speakeasies, where you would goto get your illegal alcohol. And
along with the illegal alcohol,many of these places also had
jazz, which was the hot Cha,hotcha music of the time, right?
Well,and as we're recording this the
Michael B Jordan movie sinners,was just out at the beginning of
(09:02):
the summer, and that's very jukejoint. Absolutely no, yes. Very
similar, right?
Very similar. I that was afortuitous circumstance. Who
knew that how that movie wouldcome out, and that movie also
has a lot of African folk magic,if you will, some of the magical
(09:28):
practices reading the bones andhoodoo, which is also in my book
as well. So my character comesback to this town, which was
kind of a sleepy, boring townwhen she grew up there, but now,
due to the fact that the war isover, there's a boom in need for
(09:54):
labor, and a lot of AfricanAmericans are moving up from.
The south to come live in thisplace, which is at the very tip
of Illinois, the very southerntip, right on the Mississippi
River. And in this place calledagate, which is, by the way, a
(10:15):
fictional place. Don't look forit on the map, because it's not
there. It's kind of a crossbetween k row, Illinois, which
is a real place, andEdwardsville, Indiana, which is
another real place, but it'sthis, I made a fictional place,
but folks are moving up there,and they're looking for work,
(10:39):
and they're coming in droves,and with them, they are bringing
both a labor force, but it'salso with them is coming naive
young girls who have never hadany experience In the city, and
(11:00):
they maybe, you know, 1415,years old, and they've just been
in the country, and now theymoved to the city, and where you
have that kind of population andthat level of illegal activity,
you also have crime, and youhave these pimps who were
(11:21):
basically seducing young girlsand then turning them into
prostitutes. So all of this isgoing on so the town is not
nearly as sleepy and boring asit was when Nola grew up there.
On the other hand, it's also alot more dangerous, and there
(11:46):
are gangsters, and there's rumrunners and just a whole lot of
crazy stuff there. SoI have to say, I one of the
things I love about this book asI was I told you, I use an app
that reads the book out loud tome, just because it helps me
process, and it allows me to usesome of my gifts and see the
pictures myself like an oldfashioned read does. And I just
(12:08):
felt like this book is such ajewelry box of all these
beautiful, different, you know,you were saying you've got the
beautiful, you know, boom ofindustry. But then you've got
the underbelly that's coming in,and then you have this
incredible, very fiery jazzcomponent, and the way you use
the language is reallyrevealing. And I mean, sometimes
(12:31):
very sharp, sometimes verymoving. There's, you know,
themes of justice and race,inequality and mediumship and
just the dynamics ofrelationships. So it's, it's so
layered that I really love it,because, like, just like you
were saying, all of these thingsare happening at once, and it
(12:51):
doesn't feel overwhelming at allin the writing, it's just so
nuanced that I like, I'm so I'mso proud of you. Thank you,
Joy. Thank you so much. And,yeah, you really got it. And at
the same time that all thiscraziness is going on, my
(13:14):
character also works part timeat a catering company. She's
moved back home to live with heraunt, who is a bonafide hoodoo
practitioner, what they call aconjure woman. And if you saw
sinners, you know how the womanin the movie kind of threw the
(13:36):
bones and did that, her aunt isthat kind of a woman.
These are some of the things Ilove, because I know some of
this work. And as you're I'mlike, Oh, that is, that's right.
Like, that's because you do havethe personal experience and the
understanding of all of it. So Ilove the way you weave it in, in
(13:57):
such, like, a realistic way.
Yes, thank you. And so mycharacter works for this
catering company, and becauseshe works at catering company,
first of all, I get to talkabout food, which is always fun,
right? And as caterers, they canenter a lot of different homes
(14:20):
and different places where theyotherwise would not be able to
go. So among the places whereshe goes to work as a caterer is
a woman who is a very wealthyspiritualist. We had to have a
spiritualist in there because,you know, we're psychic mediums.
(14:42):
We had to do it. Butspiritualism was also very much
on the rise in the 1920s why?
Because they had just had a war,and so many young men had been.
Taken from the planet so young,right? And people were sort of
(15:03):
searching for answers. And amongthe things that happened was
that they went to see mediumsand psychics to try to get
answers. And some of thosemediums were ethical, and some
of them not so much. So that isalso a piece of the story as
(15:25):
well.
Well, okay, this brings me toone of my many questions on my
list. You're a medium, as weknow, and Nola, as you
mentioned, is clearly gifted,and starting to uncover some of
those gifts herself. How did youapproach writing the spiritual
or psychic elements? So theyfelt really authentic, like I
(15:48):
was saying to our actualmediumship experience, but also
grounded and not too over thetop for readers that you know,
maybe it's not their vein ofbelief, for example,
that's a great question, and Ionly another medium would ask me
that question, because yes, I'msure you have also read books or
(16:13):
seen movies in which thecharacters were psychic or
whatever, and they would dostuff, and you're like, really,
yeah, not so much. Man, exactly,you know. So I wanted to make it
realistic, yet at the same time,I found that in order to move
(16:36):
the story along and bring thedrama we couldn't have, maybe,
like when you do a realmediumship reading, you get some
right answers, but you also getsome wrong answers, and you
stumble around a little bitbefore you're able to bring the
(16:57):
message and all that in. In thiscase, I had to have the
characters get to the pointpretty quickly, because we have
to move the story forward. But Idid try to bring at least some
realism, and for Nola,particularly, because, as I say,
(17:21):
she's an apprentice psychic.
She's not a dental psych, yeah,she's not a full on 100% you
know, bad character. You knowshe's, yeah, she's still
unfolding. Yeah,unfolding. So you
and I are both trance mediums,and I really loved how you
(17:43):
described so we do get toexperience a couple different
versions of seance in the story,yes, and in one of those
experiences, the way it'sdescribed is as though the
person was moving through water,and it was though they were deep
underwater in a place ofProfound Darkness, and then All
of the sudden they had anawareness of the emotions as
(18:03):
they were channeling a messagethat felt very real to me as a
trans medium. So yes,I loved that. Yes, yes. I think
if you've ever been there anddone it, I know you've probably
had experiences like that, and Iwas happy to be able to share
those little glimpses as well.
(18:26):
Yeah,well, and the psychic side,
obviously, is not the only pieceof it. It just is. I think it's
a connector to the murder pieceof it. But music, jazz plays so
much of a part of this, not justonly as a metaphor, but also
within the structure. And I lovethe way that the music really
pulses through this book, and weeven get to I feel like I'm
(18:47):
hearing it and feeling it whenthe artists are playing or
expressing their music withinthe story, which is so cool, and
the music almost acts like thissecond heartbeat for me when I'm
reading the story orexperiencing the story. And in
what ways did jazz you know,from your perspective as a very
profound jazz artist yourself,both the sounds and the symbols?
(19:11):
How did that influence I knoweverything from like the rhythm
and pacing of the book to likethe emotional arcs of the story,
because it's really deep inthere.
Thank you. And I think at leastsome of that just comes because
it's who I am. But that said, Ireally wanted to make
(19:33):
particularly the scenes in thewham bam club. And by the way,
my publisher did the cover artfor this. Okay, just amazing to
me. Very cool. It captures it.
But there's such a life and avibrancy in the club and in the
(19:53):
music and then the Inter.
Interaction between themusicians and the audience,
people shouting out to themusicians, musicians shouting
back. All of this is makes itvery vibrant, and I will say
(20:16):
also that I did write threesongs that
are sort of go along withthe book. And okay, I was gonna
ask you about this, so I'm gladwe're talking Yes, I'm gonna
give you a link to share withyour awesome listeners, because
(20:39):
they can download the songs, andthey were just kind of jazzy
songs that, to me, felt likethey, well, one of them
actually, the lyrics areactually in the book. And then I
took those lyrics and put themto music, and then I wrote a
couple of other ones as wellcrazy songs in that
(21:04):
book, roaring 20s, well.
And this was the thing, youknow, it was in many ways, very
similar to our own era, in thatpeople were just letting it all
hang out. They've been through awar. By the way, there'd been a
big pandemic, much like ourpandemic. They had the great flu
(21:30):
of 1918 and like 1000s of peopledied. And I think the general
mood was, we're just gonna partytill we drop, because who knows,
you could drop anyway, so youmight as well drop while you're
partying, you know, well,and that's one of the many
layers, is this dichotomybetween, I mean, just like you
(21:52):
said, how we have it now, thestrict, kind of religious right
of it, and then the if we'regoing To be doing this moonshine
and being in this place, we'renot supposed to be at a time.
We're not supposed to be hereanyways, like, let's really let
it loose, you knowexactly. And so you had, and
there was also pretty not in,not in agate where I write this.
(22:16):
It was not a legal separation ofthe races, but by custom.
Basically, black people stayedin one part of town. They
shopped only in certain stores.
They did only certain things.
White people stayed over here.
(22:39):
They went to their places. Butin places like the wham bam
club, it was all bets are off,because it was all completely
illegal anyway, and people mixedand mingled with in this case,
fatal results. But I'm not goingto get to we don't want to spoil
(23:04):
it. And these are some of theundercurrents that you know,
anyone who's sensitive enough oreven just paying any sort of
attention knows that we havethese undercurrents in our
current society, and you do sucha great job of, yes, the way
that they're marinated in aslike an underpinning of what's
happening in the book. It reallybeautifully weaves into its
(23:28):
proverbial tapestry. Itconfronts systemic racism,
police corruption, genderedviolence in a way that feels
somehow both timely andtimeless. So I don't know how
you're doing that. Is there aparticular news event, or
something that struck you in apersonal story, or a moment in
history that became almost likethe spark to ignite you into
(23:50):
writing this book?
That's a great question. I'vealways been interested in
history, and African Americanhistory in particular, and my
family in this period in the1920s when I had done some
research on my family, Idiscovered that both my father's
(24:15):
people and my Mother's peoplehad lived in Evansville, Indiana
at this exact same time. Theydidn't know each other then, but
they were there, and Evansvillehad a lot of the same crazy
(24:36):
corruption and wildness that Iwrite about. And so I've often
thought, I wonder what theythought. I wonder how they dealt
with it. I wonder, you know, youtry to imagine, like your
grandparents, as people in their20s, what would it have been
(24:57):
like to have moved my grandma?
Mother moved there from, like,Alabama. What would that have
been like, you know, to hit thatwas it, you know. So I've always
been really curious about aboutthat time period. And, yeah,
it's just curiosity. I guess,not only are
(25:19):
you incredible, but you havethis really incredible history
of family people that areconnected with you are any of
the musicians in your lineage,part of that two family line
that was in that area aroundthat time?
Yes, they my grandfather'speople. They actually were not
(25:42):
so much in Evansville. They werea little bit to the I think it's
the East they were, but theywere in southern Indiana. And
yes, I have one, I guess he's agreat uncle who actually was
pretty famous jazz musician whoplayed with Count Basie. If you
(26:08):
know who that is, he's like ahorse, famous band leader.
Anyone doesn't they need to lookup
Count Basie. Exactly. It's thebare minimum you need to know.
Somy uncle, Ernie Wilkins actually
did the arrangements for CountBasie and played saxophone with
him for many years. So yeah, allof those kind of things, I've
(26:31):
always felt a deep connection,both just because I'm a
musician, but also because it'san ancestral connection as well.
So cool.
Did you feel like when you werewriting and kind of exploring
and expanding the charactersthat you were almost blending or
(26:52):
tuning in for the souls of theloved ones in your line and
around that time period,I definitely felt supported and
you know, as a medium, you knowhow that is, you're starting to
write, and they're talking toyou and and they definitely let
me know they wanted certainthings. And on the other hand,
(27:16):
they let me know they did notwant certain things, so yeah, in
terms of how I was going toportray the characters, and that
there should always becompassion for all the
characters, even the worst ones,I noticed that you showed layers
(27:36):
to even the most challenging.
That'sright, that's that was very
important to them and but I dowant to say to your listeners,
we've been saying all this heavystuff about the book. I feel
like it's exciting. It isexciting, yeah, but I also want
to let them know that the bookis actually really light
(28:01):
hearted, and it's a murdermystery. It's not a there's no
like, really blood and gore.
Obviously, people get killed,but they're
killed. Things happen outside ofour awareness as the reader, we
(28:22):
just know that this hashappened, but we don't have a
lot of the thank yous and cuesabout there's no no
worries on that front body partsand you know, and it's not, it's
not that kind of book. It's andthere is at the heart of it, a
puzzle to be solved, and you thereader, have the opportunity to,
(28:46):
like any good mystery, followalong and find the trail of
clues that I left and see if youfigure out who did it. You know,
well,that is part of the fun, as
we're kind of bouncing from, youknow, I always feel like we're,
more or less, for the most part,tagging along with Nola
everywhere she goes through thestory. And she's bouncing from
(29:08):
her, you know, the places she'svisiting and the friends she
knows there, and theconversations. And then there's
the, you know, undercurrents ofthings happening in the
background, and the, I feellike, yeah, like you said, with
any good murder mystery, it'syou're looking at this person,
and you're wondering if, oh,wait, are we supposed to be
looking over here? Is this tooobvious that? Yeah, so whales
are turning for sure, which is alot of fun. Well,
(29:32):
that's what I am glad to hear,that joy, because that is
definitely what I want. And yes,it has history, and yes, it has
drama, and it has all theseother things, but at the heart
of it, hopefully it's a fun andentertaining story that will
(29:52):
leave people smiling at the end.
Okay, well, you and I both.
Spent a good amount of our timein Boston. You're still there
for me, I feel like thosecomponents I was talking about,
the way it is in the book,there's there's the story
itself, right, this mysterywe're uncovering, and all the
(30:13):
components and all the players.
And I really feel like itreminds me of when I see a movie
about Boston or that takes placein Boston, that they get it just
right, the clothing is justright, and the accents are just
right. And the because it's allhappening all around and you
don't have to necessarily makeit center stage, but you just
notice it as part of the waythings are moving in the
(30:35):
background, the way this personlooks this way and not that way,
or can go here and not there.
And so I feel like it the all ofthose extra components that
layering really grounds us into,like a real scene is how it
feels. It doesn't feel like amade up place. It feels like
good a place that we've allheard about in stories or movies
or history or even watching, youknow, a lot of the documentaries
(30:58):
that have come up over theyears, and so I feel like we're
just getting to somehow enterthrough a little doorway into
this window of a world.
Well, that was my hope inwriting it. So thank you very
much. That really makes mehappy, because I think if you
talk to any author, this is whatwe want is that it's a fictional
(31:23):
world, but it needs to feel realwithin the boundaries that we
create, so that you the reader,can kind of really go in and
experience things You know. Sogreat. That's really good,
well, in a time period too, thatwe have some references for, but
(31:45):
the way it rounds out. And thenI think that the psychic and
seance component is just, itreally is such a cool way of
moving the story forward andallowing details to be revealed.
And so that part of it is, Ithink, really, really juicy.
Well, thank you so much. Ireally am so happy you enjoyed
(32:07):
it. I really did. I have someother questions that are more
like for those that are buddingwriters, because I feel like I
know in our audience, we have alot of I feel like so many
sensitives have some sort ofbook bubbling inside of us for
some period of time, whether weever decide to address it or
not. That's true. Yeah. So whatdo you feel like? I mean, you
(32:32):
have such a rich history withall of your undertakings that we
went through in your bio. Andthen there's even more than
that, is the truth. How did youdecide? Like, okay, it's time to
bring these stories to the worldthat are have clearly been
inside of you, even in theearlier books.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Great question.
Joy. I first, when I was firstwriting, I wrote as a little
(32:56):
kid, and then I went into music.
And as you know, when you gointo something like music or
athletics or whatever it is likethat you go so deeply that you
basically don't have time to doanything else. So for a long
(33:18):
time, I only just did music, andso I was teaching at Berkeley,
and Berkeley produces textbooksthat they sell, and they asked
me if I would write a Book toteach singers how to prepare for
(33:42):
playing in a in a band, right?
So I thought, well, oh, okay, Ican do that. So I wrote the
book. But what I found was itwas far more fun writing the
little hypothetical anecdotesand the little stories than it
was actually writing theexercises and the musical piece.
(34:04):
And I thought, oh, maybe this issomething I'd like to do. So
that was, like the first sort ofit gave me a permission to say,
oh, okay, maybe you can writestuff. And then I had a really
burning story inside that Iwanted to tell about my family,
(34:29):
and this was about mygrandfather, who was the very
first African American to servein the Labor Department as an
Assistant Secretary of Labor,and this was way back in 1954
under President Eisenhower, andhis experience in the government
(34:53):
was brief. It was in. Tense, andit didn't necessarily just end
in a bed of roses. And I hadalways wondered about what that
would have been like for him atthe time, he was one of maybe
(35:14):
two or three black people in theentire upper levels of the
federal government, which ispretty weird. You know, told you
guys, Carolyn has all kinds ofcool people that are the tops of
the tops her family. This iswhat I was talking about. I know
(35:35):
some of these stories so, but Soyou wrote that story of him, and
did the research and and all ofthat.
Exactly I did that. And thenthat emboldened me to write
another book, which I wroteabout the women in my family who
were all musicians. And I wantedto go incredible to the men,
yeah, well, and I wanted to tella woman's story. So that made me
(35:59):
go and do more research anddata. And after I finished those
two books, I was sick and tiredof writing about myself. I
didn't want to write anotherword about me. I wanted to,
yeah, I wanted to make stuff up.
So I'd always enjoyed murdermysteries, and so this is how I
got into writing murdermysteries. And as you mentioned,
(36:24):
I have written this is my fourthmurder mystery. But this one by
far, is my best book ever. Ihave to say I'm really happy
with it. I have a greatpublisher who's really helped
me. I had a great editor whohelped me go over it and stuff.
(36:48):
And so back to your question of,How did I first get the idea? I
think it was more I'd always hadthese stories within me, but I
did not think that I had theability to actually be a writer.
(37:09):
And it was only bit by bit as Istarted to actually write things
that I realized, hey, you can dothis.
Yeah, that's a really goodpoint. I mean, we don't know
until we at least give it a go.
And I love that, you know, maybeyou did start through a work
(37:30):
Avenue, which I think a lot ofus will be more willing to
undertake something if ourcareer is like, will you write
this? But, yeah, most of us havea hobby or a passion, or, you
know, some people, it's more onthe mythical, mystical side. For
you, it's murder mysteries. So Ithink it's a great doorway in
for anyone who's like, oh, Imight want to write, and you've
done all these short storiestoo. So someone could just start
(37:54):
even with a short story, right?
I would actually recommend that,if there are people out there
who like to write, first of all,I encourage you to not feel
like, Oh, this is for onlycertain people, or you need to
(38:17):
have some kind of degree inwriting before you can no just
write. Everybody has a story,and the deeper you get into your
own uniqueness, the moreinteresting your story will be.
(38:37):
There's a lot of technique towriting, which takes time and
practice, just like anythingelse, but the best way to get
started is just do it. You don'thave to wait for someone to give
you permission to do it, or takea workshop before you can do it,
(39:01):
I would say, just sit down,maybe have a journal. I don't
know if you're familiar withthere's a lovely book. It's many
years old by now, but still verygood, called the artists way by
Julia. Somebody gave me thatbook as a gift. It's a great
(39:21):
book.
It's a super popular book, butwhat she does is just kind of
give you encouragement to moveforward on your journey, if you
have sort of that inner creatorin you that's kind of hiding in
there. And one of hersuggestions is that you keep a
(39:43):
journal and that you makeyourself every day write three
pages. Just write and do not goback and read it and edit it and
just sit down, close your eyesall. Almost like automatic
writing and just write, becausewhat you're doing is you're
(40:06):
priming the pump, and prettysoon those three pages will
start to write themselves even,Oh, that's great. So to your
process, I guess one of thethings I was wondering is when
you write as a writer, because Ithink everybody does it maybe a
little bit their own way. Do youimagine kind of looking through
the eyes of the main character?
(40:28):
Do you take more of thatoverarching perspective,
sometimes called as the godperspective, or the I keep
thinking of The Truman ShowMovie, yeah? Like, yeah,
overarching perspective. Do youswap back and forth? How do you
like to do it? Mybooks have all been written in
the first person, so that's justbeen what I've done. Maybe the
(40:50):
next book, well, I can't I thesenext psychics and soul food.
There are going to be threebooks in this series, and by
contract, they all have to bewith the same character set.
And okay, that was one of myquestions. So that's so we're
(41:11):
going to hear more about Nolaand her adventures. More
about Nola. More about agate,Illinois. More about her aunt,
the hoodoo woman more to thewham bam club, the wham bam
club? Yes. So maybe after that,I may try writing in a more
(41:33):
omniscient narrator kind ofpoint of view, but I found the
first person to be for me thequickest and the easiest,
because it'd be like me tellingyou a story. I would be, well, I
did this, and then I did this,and, oh, you wouldn't believe
(41:54):
what happened to me. Thishappened.
Then you're just writing thatdown.
Do you have a sense of Do you doany sort of like character
development, where you have asense of the characters and
flush them out a little beforeyour writing? Or do you kind of
know who the characters are whenyou're sitting down to do the
overall story?
Yes, I do. I actually spentquite a bit of time with these
(42:17):
characters thinking about, youknow, who they were, I write up
a little bit, almost like alittle bio on that, especially
the major characters, yeah, whothey are, where they come from,
why they would act the way theydo, their little quirks and
(42:38):
ticks, you know, and especiallyif you're writing a series, you
want the characters to haveenough meat on their bones that
people aren't completely sick ofthem after the first book. They
need to be interesting, and Ibelieve they also need to have
(43:01):
room to grow. They need toevolve. You know?
Yeah, well, there's acontinuity. I think that needs
to be there. I always think ofit, I think because some of my
backgrounds in acting, so Ithink of it from like a script
reading perspective. And there'ssome techniques in acting when
you're going to read for acharacter, where you even if
it's not there technically, butI'm making up a backstory back
(43:22):
in the day, or thinking, youknow, how would they react to
this? Or what's their personalhistory? And it feels like the
characters have all of that,even though, of course, there's
not time in one book tounderstand all of their
background. We get enough of itand enough in the particularly,
I mean, I think with a lot ofthem, but I like Nola quite a
bit, so it's like you can youget other flavors of her, just
(43:45):
in her response to something ornon response to something. Do
you know what I mean? Thosecharacters feel really fleshed
out to me.
Oh, that's great. That was a bighope. Because for me, when I
read a mystery or I watch amovie or something, if I can't
really connect to thecharacters, if they don't feel
(44:07):
real to me. Sometimes there aresome genres in which the
characters are almost like papercutouts that just do things. You
know, he runs to the car anddrives it, and then he's chased
by 30 cars, and then they blowup something and but you never
(44:29):
really have a sense that this isreally a person with moods and
different feelings and things.
So for me, I prefer a morecharacter driven story. And as a
writer, I did spend a lot oftime making sure that my
characters felt authentic to me.
(44:53):
There's a depth to them. Yeah, Iknow what you're talking about.
Sometimes that feels reallysurfacey. I don't know. I don't
know how you magically managedto. Accomplish it in something
that's not 1000 pages to reallylike, get in there and make them
feel fully developed, but theythey certainly do. Is there
something that really surprisedyou most as you started to
(45:15):
uncover the characters? Did anyof them really take on a life of
their own in a way that youmaybe didn't expect as you're
adding the complexities orreveal something unexpected as
you wrote them.
Yes, yes, and I don't want tospoil anything. Yes, don't. No
spoilers, guys. ButI think particularly some of the
minor characters, the woman whohas the spiritualist runs the
(45:41):
seance there, she turns out tobe kind of an interesting
person, and not quite what youmight think at first.
Will we see more of her as well,I don't know. To be determined,
yeah, determined to be they'lldefinitely be more psychic stuff
(46:09):
that I can promise. But I thinkthe next book goes in a little
bit of a different direction.
Okay, so I don't want to say toomuch. It's, it's a little
different, the same, butdifferent. And this is, of
(46:31):
course, for all of you wantingto write people out there, this
is also a big challenge, becausewhen you come with the next book
in the series, it can't just belike the first book. It's got to
be different. And even thoughthe characters are the same,
(46:54):
they can't do the same thingsjust doing they have to evolve.
They have to grow. They have toand that is challenging for the
writer, because at the sametime, if you change them too
much, people are going to beWait a minute, you said, Nola
(47:15):
always ate chocolate ice creamafter and now you have her
eating like, strawberry, yeah,you know. So it's a, it's a,
it's a tight rope that you haveto walk.
We the audience do sometimes getattached to our characters being
a certain way. You know, I'malmost feeling like, I'm pretty
excited. I'm almost feelinglike, maybe we'll get some
(47:38):
version of, like, a murdermystery, White Lotus situation,
where we're going to differentdifferent places and experiences
with our girl, really? I mean,only 21 she got plenty of time
to she's still young. Yeah, didsomething in you? Did you get
the sense when you were writingthis one that like, Okay, this
is going to be a series. Is thatsomething that you just felt
(48:01):
inside, or was that more on thedecision end,
I wanted to make it a series.
First of all, if you're a writerand you're trying to sell
something, a series is a littlebit more saleable, because the
publisher hopefully, their hopeis that after they release this
(48:21):
one, people will want more Nola,and then they're going to want,
you know, the next book and thenext book and the next book. So
it's a win win for everyone thatsaid, you know, some people just
write one book and that's it,and they sell it, and that's it.
(48:42):
And then they go back and theycreate a completely different
book, and they and they do, youknow, but I wanted this to be a
group of three, and then we'llsee how it goes. So there will
be three psychics and Soul Foodmysteries with the same
characters, or at least the samemajor characters.
(49:08):
Yeah, so yeah, when I feel likeit's a perfect story to either
the way I think of it is likeeither for like a Sunday
reading, when you just want tohave a little lazy morning in
bed with a cup of tea, or ifyou're darting to appointments,
and, you know, we all get stuckin waiting rooms or lines, or
whether you have a digital or atangible copy to just kind of
(49:29):
like, okay, it's the kind ofstory that I felt like I could
slip in and out of and knowwhere I was and really get back
in there pretty easily, whichfor me, I really
like A lot. Yeah, I tried tomake it like that and also that
each chapter both wraps up alittle bit, but also hooks you
(49:52):
into the next chapter so theyshould follow. And that goes
back to I. Referred before tothe technique of writing. There
is a fair amount of technique toreally making a story flow, and
that's one of the challenges, tobe able to just let there be as
(50:18):
few impediments between thereader and the story as
possible. That's, that's myview, anyway,
is that something that you workout more in the editing on the
back end, because I've heardwriters say you just gotta
write, write it and don't likeyou said earlier, don't edit it
as you're doing it. Write it alland then pass it over to a great
(50:40):
editor and let them try to helpdesign some of the breaks and
omit some of the and then you goback and do a second round
yourself. Is that sort of how itworks for you? Well, it at
first, in order to sell thebook, you need to have be your
own very rigorous editor. AndI'm blessed to have a husband
who is also a really goodwriter, and he's also extremely
(51:04):
particular, so he went throughit a couple times. And then I
have other writer friends whoI've exchanged books with
they've read mine and I've readso I sent it out to like a small
group of beta readers who madesuggestions, and then I went
(51:30):
back and edited, and then I sentit to my agent, and She went
through it and edited, and thenI sent it to the publisher. He
edited, sent it back to me. Iedited, then I sent it to a
further, different level readerwho did another edit. And then
(51:55):
finally, they do a copy editwhere they go through and just
look for grammatical mistakes orgross inaccuracies. They checked
all my, you know, that was thefirst thing she said, Is this
agate a real place. I can't findit on the map. You know,
(52:20):
so funny. Yeah, I think there'sa lot of that part of it that
people maybe don't realize whenthey're entering in. It really
is a labor of love to createthis work into the world. It's
not, you know, like both thingscreative. It's not a few hours
long.
It's it took me five years, fiveyears, and part of that was that
(52:45):
I wrote it and then I was havingtrouble selling it, which is
another whole story, and it wasa long slog to find the right
agent who could appreciate thebook and behind the book, and
then she was able to get it infront of the publisher that I
(53:09):
currently have. Yeah, the rightpeople, but it's more than a
notion. And I will say, Sure, ifyou like to write. Writing is
sorry. I was just squeakingaround. Oh, no worries. I was
afraid it was me. Writing is notfor the faint of heart, and it
(53:33):
is also not for the impatient.
If you're an impatient personthat needs to see results right
away. Maybe you write, but youdon't write to be published.
Yeah, start there, because it'sa long, long thing, and that's
why to get back to your point.
(53:59):
If you feel like you want towrite fiction, think about
writing short stories. It's alot easier to get a short story
published. You mostly don't needan agent to submit your story to
magazines, and there are a lotof online magazines or
(54:21):
anthologies that have differentthemes, and they'll put out call
for submissions, and you canoffer your story there, and
that's a great way to share yourwork.
Yeah, I think it's differentprocess for everyone, and
sometimes it is thosebreadcrumbs as we move forward
(54:42):
and see if something's a goodfit for us. I do have just a
couple more questions about thebook and the process. You we
were amazing. You're so funny.
Yeah, I'm just excitedabout, I think it was, I think
it was phenomenal. I'm reallyexcited for the next one, of
course. And I knew I was like, Iwonder if Carolyn could tell. Us
anything about the next slide,but I feel like you already did
(55:04):
the spirit speed round. So wehad time for a little bit extra.
I had a couple of just kind offun questions. One of them, you
sort of answered already. It waswhen you write, do you look or
do you listen to music as you'reworking and as you're writing,
and if so, I was wondering ifthere's a piece of music you
(55:26):
don't piece of music that youreally relate to nola's
character.
Yeah, I wrote songs for thatpurpose, but I, because I'm also
a musician, I can't listen tomusic and do something else
(55:48):
interesting, yeah, because it'slike, I my mind gets involved
with the music. I start. Oh,well, I wonder why he used the
trumpet there instead of thesaxophone. Why did he go to that
chord change instead of here? OrI just, I can't just have the
(56:09):
music just be like background.
So when I write, I write, andthen when I do music, I I do
music. So they're like, kind ofseparate, um, but since part of
the book, there are literal songlyrics in the book, I thought it
(56:30):
would be fun, because they're atthe wham bam club, right? Yeah.
What are they listening to?
Well, naturally, they'relistening to blues. Some of
those lyrics are pretty gutbucket, pretty racy.
Yeah, it's very racy fun,unexpected
(56:50):
fun. And so when I wrote thoselyrics, I did, in my mind, hear
the music that would go underthem. And so that's why I did
end up recording three songsthat are related to the book
that you can download for free.
I'm going to give you the link.
(57:13):
I'm pretty good aboutthat, yeah, put it in the show
notes with your website. Icouldn't imagine you doing it
any other way, even when I wasreading the lyrics are hearing
them in the story. I was like,oh, there's definitely, you
definitely were hearing a songto this. And I'm sure even
ambiently, as you're goingthrough the the experience and
rereading it, I'm sure there'ssome version of soundtrack or
other things that are happening.
(57:35):
This is a strange question,maybe, but I hope it's a fun
one. If you could sit down atthe wham bam club for one night
only, spiritually or otherwise,who would you want at the piano
and who would you want to besitting next to you?
Oh, my goodness. Well, I'll tellyou what. There are some great
(57:57):
characters. I'm not going to gointo them. There are several
gangsters, including a kind ofhandsome, sexy one. There are a
couple of very corruptpoliticians. They might be
interesting. They probably couldtake you out for a good time.
(58:18):
But on the piano, I want to say,I want to be on the piano. I
want to play. And the band thatthey have at the WAM BAM Club is
a good band. Whatever elsethey've got going on, the music
is good. And I think would besuper fun to be, to be part of
(58:42):
that for like one night.
Well, and I think historically,we know through all the
documentaries that most jazzartists of the time were
incredible artists and also hadcomplicated other stuff. Well,
you put it very kindly. Yes,they were sometimes there was a
reason why musicians wereconsidered to be kind of along
(59:06):
with actors and any of thosekind of show folk. They were
pretty much the bottom of thebarrel. They were not this the
hoity toides of society by anymeans. Yeah, well, and
it's a little scandalous to evenbe there, so kind of to your
earlier point, yeah, it is thisstrange mix of unusual
(59:31):
bedfellows. Can we say that'swhat makes it fun? Yeah,
wouldn't be seen together, maybeon Main Street. But are none of
them can talk about who's thereand who's not there, because
they're not supposed to bethere.
Nobody's supposed to be there.
Whole place was completelyillegal, yet operating in broad
view of the law and all thatso well. And it sets it
(59:51):
perfectly for us to have Nola asthe prime investigator here.
Because, you know, sometimeswhen things happen in. And
places like this, maybe the maininvestigators are investigating
too hard and got to take on thecase ourselves.
There you go. Well, Joy, I thinkyou have captured the spirit of
it for sure.
(01:00:13):
Okay, just one more question foryou.
What isthe what is the kind of wind of
inspiration that's moving youtowards this next novel? Is
there a breezy vibe that you'refeeling as you move into it? Is
there more of like a mysteriousair that we can be expecting to
feel around the corner? Do youhave any thoughts on the on
(01:00:36):
that? Oh, what a greatquestion. They're so fun.
The truth is, the second bookhas already been written,
because that's the way the bookbusiness works. Who knew
for you, though five yearsthat's great. You got a lot done
(01:00:58):
in there. Yeah, the secondbook will come out this time
next year, so I will say that ithas the same characters, but
part of what really interestedme was some real life I almost
want to describe them as cultfigures. There's a little bit of
(01:01:24):
that going on in the book cultfigures of the 1920s Yeah. So
I'm not going to say too much,but perfect Nola is, as usual,
in the thick of things and up toher ears in trouble, so
(01:01:48):
accidentally getting herselfnominated for for things. Okay,
I have one final question, sure,nola's investigation requires
her to trust her inner voicedespite lots of external doubt,
and sometimes I think many of uscan struggle with that. What do
you hope readers take away aboutthings like self trust,
(01:02:10):
especially in the face ofeverything happening in that
story? And now, greatquestion. I did think about
this, and I did want her to be,to some degree, even though
she's a fictional character, Ido want her to be kind of an
inspiration, of speaking up forherself, being a little bit
(01:02:33):
feisty, not Falling for the Okeydoke, or just because some male
authority figure tells hersomething that she has to do it.
And I would hope that readerswould take away from that a
(01:02:55):
little feeling of feelingempowered and a little feeling
inspired, and like, yeah, yeah.
Women, even back then, evenunder oppressive conditions,
people can do amazing things.
And that's maybe that's a littlebit of a message.
(01:03:22):
I love it. Well. Thank you forsharing this work with us and
being willing to talk to us allabout it. Obviously, people can
findeverything@carolynwilkens.com
which I'll of course link in theshow notes. Where else can we
get this book? Is that the bestway is that the only way this
book, thanks to my wonderfulpublisher, this book is
(01:03:43):
available, as they say, whereverbooks are sold. You can go to
your local bookstore and requestthat they order it if they don't
have it. You can get it atAmazon. You can get it at Barnes
and Noble, you can get it allkinds of those places. And I
(01:04:08):
will mention also, there's an ebook available, and there's an
audio book, so joy if it wasn'tthat you had gotten a pre order
copy of the book. You couldactually have had a real human
read you the book. I would muchprefer. Are you reading the
(01:04:30):
book? No, it's an actress,interesting. Maybe I'm gonna re
listen to it. Listen well. Thisis the type of book I would re
listen to. I highly recommend,even if someone just likes
reading, or for travel or for afun gift, it's It's everything
you want it to be. It's sodelicious. And I really hope
that you will come back and tellus about the next
(01:04:52):
one before you are the best.
Thank you so much for having me.
I reallyappreciate it, and thanks for.
Shining your light and everyoneit is totally available right
now. Murder at the wham bam clubby Miss Carolyn Marie Wilkins,
thanks for shining your light.
Thank you. Well, what did youthink of that conversation with
(01:05:15):
amazing author, musician,medium, artist and friend
Carolyn Wilkins, murder at thewham bam club is such a fun,
exciting book. I highlyrecommend it, like I was saying,
whether you are in a waitingroom or having some kind of
travel or even just want to havea little relaxing time on a
Sunday morning, it is theperfect book for that. Murder at
(01:05:38):
the wham bam club is availablenow. Like Carolyn said, wherever
you get your books, and you canalso go to carolynwilkens.com
which I'll, of course, link inthe show notes. I will also link
those additional songs that shewas telling us about, that she
created as she was writing thebook, because there are some
songs actually in the book, sowe can hear the music itself.
(01:05:59):
And Carolyn is quite modest, butshe's an incredibly acclaimed
musician artist, among manyother accolades. So she's such a
special person, and I'm reallygrateful for her sharing her
time with us yet again on thepodcast. I'll also link that
other episode that she did,which was the Akashic Records
(01:06:21):
trance piano healing episode. Soyou actually receive a healing
in that episode with her pianomusic that she's channeling. So
that was a really coolexperience as well. And in that
episode, we talk all aboutCarolyn's mediumship, how she
became a medium, her history,and all of that part of her
story as well, so you can get toknow her even more. And for me,
(01:06:45):
that just makes anything I'mreading more delicious to get to
know the author. So she said,there is now an audio book, plus
the hard copy, plus the digitalversion, all available. Now you
can find themeither@carolynwilkins.com or
wherever books are sold. Andagain, I will link everything in
the show notes. I'm so gratefulfor you being here with me
today. Do you feel like you havea story inside of you that you
(01:07:09):
want to write? Do you just enjoyreading other people's works?
Are you starting to get astirring about maybe what's next
for you, or what your soul'scalling you to undertake? Stick
around, because I have so muchmore coming up in the fall,
exercises and opportunities andworkshops and some really fun
(01:07:30):
ways for you to start exploringsome gifts of your own. So as
always, thanks for being herewith me today. Big hugs. Lots of
love from inside spiritspeakeasy. You.
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