A Little Inspiration, Please: a guest blog by Frankie Y. Bailey

ETA: We have a copy of Frankie Y. Bailey's next near-future police-procedural, WHAT THE FLY SAW, to give away to one lucky commenter!

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Frankie Bailey is one of those women who makes the rest of us look like slackers. She's an academic - a criminal justice professor at the State University of New York at Albany; an author - who's been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Agatha Awards among others; a volunteer - she's served as both EVP of Mystery Writers of America and President of Sisters in Crime. To top it off, she's funny, nice and has a beautiful Maine Coon Cat. 

Frankie's known for her  Lizzie Stuart series, about a crime historian who stumbles over bodies in small towns and colleges, and for her nonfiction on the intersection of crime, culture and history. But she's stepped out in an intriguing new direction with a The Red Queen Dies, a near-future police procedural:

The year is 2019, and a drug used to treat soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, nicknamed "Lullaby," has hit the streets. Swallowing a little pill erases traumatic memories, but what happens to a criminal trial when the star witness takes a pill and can't remember the crime? When two women are murdered in quick succession, biracial police detective Hannah McCabe is charged with solving the case. In spite of the advanced technology, including a city-wide surveillance program, a third woman is soon killed, and the police begin to suspect that a serial killer is on the loose. But the third victim, a Broadway actress known as “The Red Queen,” doesn’t fit the pattern set by the first two murders.

With the late September heat sizzling, Detective Hannah McCabe and her colleagues on the police force have to race to find the killer in a tangled web of clues that involve Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

The next in her new series, What the Fly Saw, will be out at the beginning of March.

            One of the more anecdote-friendly questions a writer can be asked is, “Where do you get your ideas?” This question allows the writer to go off in a number of different directions (e.g., research, day job, personal experience, observation of human behavior). “Where do you get your ideas?” invites the writer to entertain her listeners with a behind the scenes look at her process. She can recount how her book or short story was inspired by a real-life event, derived from a myth or legend, or spun from an overheard conversation.

If they were ever asked the question, a number of early writers might have mentioned a real-life event. Edgar Allan Poe used the mysterious death of Mary Rogers, the “beautiful cigar girl,” as the basis for his Dupin short story set in Paris. Pauline E. Hopkins, the “mother of African American mystery writing,” drew on the 1892 Lizzie Borden double-murder case for “Talma Gordon” (1900), her serialized short story about race, gender, and murder. While covering an Iowa murder trial, journalist and feminist writer, Susan Glaspell, visited the farmhouse that was the scene of the crime. A decade and a half later, she drew on the Hossack case and that visit as inspiration for her play, “Trifles” (1916), and a short story, “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917).  When she wrote Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Agatha Christie had her own experience as a passenger on a snow-bound Orient Express train and the massive media coverage of the kidnapping and murder of the son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh.

As a teacher, I love it when a writer draws on a source that I can identify – wonderful for those additional reading or viewing assignments. But I’m also fascinated by the less obvious connections that creative people reveal when asked about their inspirations. During a post-screening Q and A for her film Night Catches Us (2010), scriptwriter and director, Tanya Hamilton was prompted by the film’s producer (Ron Simons) to tell the audience about the title. Set in 1970s Philadelphia, the film (starring pre-Scandal Kerry Washington) is about the return of a former Black Panther to his old neighborhood. Hamilton explained that her husband, a fiction writer, had suggested the title. On visits to Jamaica, he had heard her relatives say, “Don’t let the night catch you” (i.e., don’t be late, come home before dark). When Hamilton needed a new title for her film because the working title no longer fit, her husband suggested Night Catches Us. 

            In a Billboard interview (7/26/2014), “alt-rock icon” Jennifer Herrema revealed that television is one of her sources of inspiration. She always has it on, playing as “white noise” in the background. Now and then something catches her attention. I don’t know what else Ms. Herrema and I have in common, but I felt instant kinship. She drew on reality TV for a song on a recent album. Soap operas played a role in one of my mysteries. I made a list of my sources of inspiration, and it’s a long one. Putting aside the research that I do as a crime historian, my list includes Daphne du Maurier’s “The Birds” (set in Cornwall, not California), two Kenny Rogers songs (“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” and “Reuben James”), a photograph of a black velvet evening coat, circa 1930s, High Noon and Sean Connery in Outland, and 1950s sci-fi movies. And, yes – I know you’re here, fellow fans -- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I happened to look up and see the boxed volumes that a friend had given me in my bookcase and thought – “Alice – Albany in the near future” – and then I thought “children’s literature – inspiration for series”.

What has inspired you as a writer? Have you heard an interesting story about an inspiration? 

Frankie Bailey has five books and two published short stories in a mystery series featuring crime historian Lizzie Stuart. The Red Queen Dies, the first book in a near-future police procedural series featuring Detective Hannah McCabe, came out in September, 2013.  The second book in the series, What the Fly Saw is due out in March 2015. Frankie is a former executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of Sisters in Crime.  You can find out more about Frankie and her novels at her website and you can follow her on Twitter as @FrankieYBailey