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Leanna Renee Hieber
1.6k Plays1 year ago
Leanna Renee Hieber is an actress, playwright, ghost tour guide and the award-winning, bestselling author of over fourteen Gothic, Gaslamp Fantasy, Supernatural Suspense and Non-Fiction books for adults and teens with publishers such as Tor, Sourcebooks and Kensington Books. A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America's Ghosts, co-authored with Andrea Janes, is a 2022 Bram Stoker Award finalist for "Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction". The book explores the intersection of women's history and ghost stories.
Her Strangely Beautiful saga, beginning with The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, hit Barnes & Noble and Borders Bestseller lists and garnered numerous regional genre awards. Tor Books notes Strangely Beautiful as a "foundational text of Gaslamp Fantasy" and new, revised editions are now available via Tor. Darker Still hit American Bookseller's Association's "Indie Next List", was a Scholastic Book Club "Highly Recommended" title and a Daphne du Maurier award finalist.
The Spectral City was a # 1 bestseller across several genres and digital platforms. A 4-time Prism Award winner for excellence in the genre of Fantasy Romance, Leanna's short stories have been featured in notable anthologies and her books have been selected for national book club editions as well as translated into many languages. She lectures on Gothic fiction and ghostly themes for prominent institutions such as New York University, Miami University and at conventions, libraries and conferences around the country.
A proud member of Actors Equity and SAG-AFTRA, Mystery Writers of America, SFWA, Historical Novel Society, International Thriller Writers and The Dramatists Guild, she lives in New York where she is a licensed NYC tour guide working with Boroughs of the Dead and has been featured on television in Mysteries at the Museum and Beyond the Unknown, discussing Victorian Spiritualism. She tours a one-woman show as 19th century designer Clara Driscoll and is represented by Sara Megibow and Chelsea Hensley of the KT Literary Agency. She tweets often @leannarenee
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:03
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing, creator and host Ken Vellante, editor and producer, Peter Bauer. This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast, and we have Liana Renee Hyber here.
00:00:24
Speaker
author, well, I say author, but an artist of many sorts. Right off the bat, Liana, I wanted to welcome you to the Art and Philosophy Show.
Liana Renee Hieber's Book and Ghost Stories
00:00:36
Speaker
Thank you. I'm so glad to be here talking about some of my favorite subjects. Yeah, yeah. Just as a general introduction for folks, I encountered the newer work
00:00:50
Speaker
a haunted history of invisible women. True stories of America's ghost that Liana wrote with Andrea James and it's quite the book and it's already I know up for awards in recognition but I just want to give folks a little bit of a taste of it like how I felt with it is
00:01:13
Speaker
I found it so fantastic to have a critical lens, a social critical lens when we're talking about ghosts. And I think the way you do your book, you capture the authentic experience that individuals can experience a presence of ghosts or specters, and that's a real experience. And you also, in your critical analysis, try to disaggregate
00:01:43
Speaker
all the story and all the other things about why ghost stories might exist. So it has that critical look where whatever ghost story you're getting into, you're taking that knife and that lens to it.
Liana's Artistic Journey
00:02:00
Speaker
So I just wanted to mention to everybody how I encountered Liana. She's also an actor.
00:02:07
Speaker
Of course, a writer, a historian, tour guide, and what made me most excited, a very proud union member of SAG-AFTRA. So I'm very excited to hear that. First question for you, Leanna. When did you see yourself as an artist? And that's an easy question because from my earliest sense of self, and part of that was easy because
00:02:36
Speaker
I was born into an artistic family. And I think when your family are artists, in this case, my father specifically was a potter. And he's still getting back into pottery. He gave up pottery for a while to be an academic and taught a lot and did a lot of academic advising. But now that he's retired from academia, he's getting back into pottery again some. But I grew up in a potter studio, essentially.
00:03:04
Speaker
I really took to art both drawing line art as well as music, as well as singing, as well as theater, anything performative, anything storytelling. And I did love making things, you know, so I loved sitting in the studio with my dad and, you know, he would just give me a wad of clay and I would make something out of it and felt very supported in that regard. And so I was very lucky. It's also good to have an exam, him as an example, because I learned
00:03:31
Speaker
about how much hard work it is to be an artist right out of the gate. And so we hustled a lot and there were some lean years, but I also knew that that was something that was his calling.
Storytelling and Historical Context
00:03:43
Speaker
And so for me, when I realized my calling lay a little bit more in storytelling than either in
00:03:54
Speaker
arts and crafts or in like sculptural stuff. I've realized that like that my voice was better in writing and in performing. And so I truly started to think of my art as storyteller because whether it was the written word or whether it was the
00:04:11
Speaker
a word performed or making up ghost stories as early as I can remember to scare my Girl Scout troop, which I thought was really fun. So those things, I think that that sense of self as a storyteller, it's inextricable from anything else in my life. It's really baked into my earliest, earliest memories of myself are memories of me storytelling and are memories of me sitting with pen and paper to
00:04:41
Speaker
create a story one way or another. So yeah, I, um, I've talked to a few guests, uh, recently with kind of do a lot of different types of creativity and a two or three of them come back to that point that you say, you know, as I've seen as kind of foundational storytelling.
00:04:59
Speaker
And in in with the different you know ways that that you create I think that that forms the backdrop that's one of the things I like about podcast or even in this particular instance being able to talk about your.
Ghosts, Labor History, and the Triangle Fire
00:05:13
Speaker
your book in those stories in that way to tell those stories. In those stories, I want to mention a particular point because it felt different to me. A couple points. One is that some of the women, spirits, and presences have agency towards the world in your description. I'll give you
00:05:44
Speaker
One particular example that startled me when I heard it and inspired me as a labor guy, that the ghost, this particular ghost was there to remind us of US labor laws, that in some of the industrial incidents or the incidents with the triangle factory fire, which you cover in there, that
00:06:08
Speaker
there's such deep wrong that's happened to humans. But to imagine agency on the other side, or if ghosts warn, or if they protect further from that incursion, that's a radical thought. Can you tell me a little bit about what I was picking up there? Yeah, yeah. I think when you're talking about ghost stories, when it relates to something as horrific as the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire,
00:06:38
Speaker
which was the most horrific workplace disaster in this country. It killed 146 people. 123 of them were women and girls as young as 14 years old. And this was at a time before labor laws and at a time clearly before child labor laws.
00:06:58
Speaker
And uh, the fact that any of such things are back in the news again is grieving. Uh, all of us that work in these kinds of fields So I feel it's in terms of the warning If you're going to be talking about a haunted location and when we talk about the triangle fire I get very very emotional when I talk about it. And so every single time I have to check I have to I get addled when I talk about it. I I will say things out of order I will um
00:07:27
Speaker
let myself be completely raw to emotion and my guests feel it. And especially the right space and I heard that. So yeah, tell us. Yeah, I feel like in that moment,
00:07:46
Speaker
It's tricky because we have to make sure that we're not sensationalizing the site as, oh, you're going to hear the screams or you're going to smell the smell of burning or any of the things that would be sensationalized about any of that. People who describe that place as a haunted place have had some sensory experiences there, a bit of an echo. We call it in the paranormal sphere is place memory.
00:08:13
Speaker
that something of that horrible day is kind of there because of the impact of that extreme emotional situation that leaves a mark. It leaves a psychic stain, as it were. And then that can be something really positive, but in this case, it's something really horrific.
00:08:27
Speaker
And I try to make sure that when I talk about it, it never comes across like I'm trying to make this something to scare you as a sensationalized narrative, but it should scare you that humans ever locked people in buildings like this and then just let them die.
00:08:47
Speaker
that they died because of no safety regulations. It was an extremely unsafe workplace. All of the safety protections that could have been in place were ignored by the factory, specifically pointedly. The fire escape was not maintained. The other things that had been implemented in other urban structures to prevent against fire, like making sure stairwells were metal. Well, in this case, they were not implemented into metal. They were made of wood. Everything was quickly consumed in 14 minutes.
00:09:17
Speaker
Some could get out through the fire escape on the 10th floor, but most had to jump. And the fire department had not been given enough clearance or funds to create eight story letters. They only had six story letters. If you can imagine, the fire department was on hand when it happened and they were two stories away from being able to help anyone. And the fire nets were not strong enough to withstand the force of a body jumping.
00:09:43
Speaker
from 10 stories. These are horrific things in and of themselves. I don't need to sell any horror on this. I just have to state the facts. Those are horrific things. Why we talk about it on a ghost tour is because there have been noted reports through the years of people having an overwhelming sense of sadness and an overwhelming sense of horror, even if they don't know the history of that building.
Labor Movement and Historical Remembrance
00:10:07
Speaker
The plaque on the side of the building didn't go up until the last couple of decades. There was a whole period of time where NYU, it was a building that NYU, New York University, uses as a school. So there was a period of time where NYU didn't ever want to talk about that building or its history or anything, and they couldn't be bothered with it. It's a part of the biology department now. So even people that didn't know the history felt strange.
00:10:31
Speaker
up there on those top floors. So something's there. But for us, going back to what's so important about this being a labor movement issue is we are honestly not trying to capitalize literally on this error of capitalistic greed.
00:10:50
Speaker
and putting corporate profits over human bodies, literally. And so we have to be very careful as ghost tour guides that we are saying, okay, here's a cautionary tale, and I make this a rallying point of make sure you never, ever, ever, ever, ever lose track of your labor laws and make sure you hold your representatives accountable for all of your labor laws. Don't ever let anything erode the safety that literally these women died.
00:11:14
Speaker
to get us to this point. And that's the thing that for me, all I can do to honor the spirits of them, I don't believe that those spirits are still there trapped in any kind of place. That's just not how that works. They're not stuck there eternally. That's not how the spirit world works in my world.
00:11:34
Speaker
But that but the echo of their pain and that cry the cry of that anguish is there to to make sure that we the living do not forget them and we were recently at the anniversary so March 25th is the anniversary was March 25th 1911 when it happened and members of the AFL-CIO every year go and lay 146 carnations around the base of that of the
00:11:59
Speaker
It's called the Brown Building now, but it was called the Ash Building, ASCH, unfortunately, named back in the day. But the Brown Building near Washington Square Park in Manhattan, and the AFL-CIO members every year put up a wreath honoring the members, those that died there, and putting carnations with the names of the dead.
00:12:24
Speaker
along the sidewalk and There's a picture of that in the in at the top of the chapter that I took on the anniversary that photo Yeah, and it's really what I gave a tour that day and I absolutely broke down into tears And again, and I said to my I said in my audience then I say whenever I talk about it I say it right now God help me if I ever stop being near to tears about this story
00:12:51
Speaker
And so when when everyone sees all of those carnations and they're standing at this spot it is such a powerful thing because you just see how many there are and it really just goes beyond the me telling the story to seeing that visual with it and so that's particularly powerful we try to to
Personal Connections to Labor Activism
00:13:13
Speaker
to just make sure that folks can have an additional impact with that because we, again, we feel like it's a rallying cry that unfortunately, in our past few decades, you know,
00:13:25
Speaker
certain lawmakers and certain corporations want to keep eroding these safety procedures, these labor laws. But we also are right now in a beautiful renaissance of unionizing. And that's a glorious thing. So we were really excited to sort of start this book out with The Triangle Fire as
00:13:43
Speaker
Here's the delicate balance that we have as tour guides to deal with this delicately humanely but as a rally and cry for action because these These dead are meant we can honor them best by making sure no other children die Thank you. Thank you. And I gotta tell you, you know, I've done I've done
00:14:07
Speaker
Labor work for for twenty twenty-four years and anybody who's involved with the movement anybody you talk to is involved with the movement can talk about their relationship with it and and things that are inspiring and you know just hearing what you had to say made me think of a lot of things and
00:14:26
Speaker
Raising your voice like you did in saying it directly, um, allows history not become a passive, like a modeling of fear, which it can be so much, you know, like, cause.
00:14:39
Speaker
You know, how do you reminisce or think about a hellscape that is that, that, that fire. And I found like in, in listen to some details that I didn't know just about the structure itself. It was, it's just so conceptually mind blowing to me that all the things that would be there for safety to be able to connect the pieces and all that, that's all torched up and you still have.
In-depth on the Triangle Fire
00:15:02
Speaker
the structure itself standing that way. The great irony is that the exterior of the building is fireproof and was built to be so. And that's the sickest thing about it. And it reopened. It reopened not long after it was cleared out and reopened as a factory. How long after?
00:15:29
Speaker
I think it was, I forget how many months it was. It was like months. It was like, it wasn't even six months, I don't think. And there was a trial, but the owners faced no charges and were not sentenced to anything because they had broken no labor laws because there were no labor laws. But my God was there outraged. And that really, I mean, but again, but this is, these are things that, to go back to the movement,
00:15:56
Speaker
You know, garment workers were striking since the 19th century, and just the year prior, one of the men who was writing about the incident, who was on hand watching it all unfold, was watching Triangle, was watching the burning, was taking pains to excruciatingly talk about the sound of bodies.
00:16:18
Speaker
hitting the pavement. And I say this to be gruesome because the New York Times reporter was trying to get it through people's heads what was happening. And he remembered and recalled, he said, I remember those girls marching last year, the uprising of the 20,000, when 20,000 garment workers in 1910, led by Clara Lemlich, a young girl, a garment worker herself,
00:16:43
Speaker
who had been beaten by Pinkerton guards and got up in, this was a year before Triangle, and said to General Assembly, I call for a general strike. And she said it in Yiddish, as many of the attendees there were Jewish immigrants.
00:16:58
Speaker
and then just everyone poured out onto Union Square and it became the largest labor protest in the history of our country at that point, 20,000. So it's the uprising of the 20,000. So as this New York Times reporter is talking about the triangle unfolding, he's like, these girls were trying to warn us then about this. And that's why he went into such gruesome detail about what was happening because he just, he like I want people to really get how
00:17:24
Speaker
terrible it is. And if you are sickened, then you might act. It's like the brave parents who have been willing to share some of the autopsy photos of their children have been mowed down by AR-15s in classrooms and it's gruesome and it's horrible, but they're trying to do what they can to sort of raise awareness for something terrible to sort of say, maybe this information might move you.
00:17:51
Speaker
so the reporters at the time were doing this and just it is these details are visceral and that like you said can make the past present and for us we can make sure that that we are not on that slippery slope because there are so many ways in which you know the world will just grind people up and spit them out and and so there's you know we're
00:18:16
Speaker
We're all in various stages of the gig economy as tour guides, as, you know, in various, yes, I'm a union member for my theatrical work and any of the film work I do, but that does not apply to some of the rest of the work that I do. So, you know, the hustle is real, it's difficult, but I think that that rally and cry is just so, so, so important. And I think all of those little details
00:18:45
Speaker
whatever we can do to make that palpable for people. So yeah, we started off with quite a doozy, but I do promise you that the rest of the book does have some humorous stories in it too. They're able to like rise above some of the situations that they were in in life and to have a bit of celebrity now in their afterlife that
00:19:05
Speaker
uh, the spirit seemed to even, you know, delight in. So there's, there is a lot of love and, uh, and, and quirky stuff and, and some bad ladies too. I mean, they're not all victims. Some of them are the Jezebel and the Jezebel chapter and the mer, I mean, I'm specifically thinking of like the murderers. So although the jury's still out on Lizzie Borden, we don't really know Andrea wrote an amazing chapter about her.
Women in Ghost Lore and Feminist Critique
00:19:30
Speaker
And I, I thought I knew, I think we all knew, we all think we know. And then she presents all the evidence and we're like, well, maybe
00:19:35
Speaker
I don't know. That's kind of the great thing about some of these stories is that we think we know these urban legends and then we start to really unpack the people behind them. That was our whole point of like,
00:19:49
Speaker
this haunted history of invisible women. Like these are, yes, okay, these are ghost stories, sure. But there are a lot of urban legend and let's try to separate fact from fiction and can we try to give you an accurate picture as best we know how. This is very difficult because not, there's only so much that exists on these things, especially when it comes to ghost lore, it's not very always well documented. A lot of it's a lot of hearsay.
00:20:09
Speaker
and not always with footnotes. So there's a lot of unpacking some of those things, but if these are real people with real records, we can track them to a point. But with women, if their name got subsumed within marriage, that they were Mrs. so-and-so husband's name, it's a lot harder to track them before that life event. So this was us trying to say, okay, who are the people actually behind this?
00:20:36
Speaker
what were their real lives, and then how in some ways were they set up to become the ghost stories that they later became. And in some ways, it was a bit of a hit job, like in the case of Sarah Winchester, where all of these falsehoods were said about her. Or in the other case, there were ways in which a certain romanticization of some of these women's stories led to a different kind of afterlife for them. So we try to represent a real range of experiences.
00:21:03
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it's on the active component of two, I think with the
00:21:10
Speaker
you know, the feminist critique and the agency that can come from, you know, those who have passed, right? And so there's always this idea, which I think is, I think is a challenging idea. Like, I'm very, very much connected to it. But to think about of how that potential critique of the ghost results in agency that is attacks,
00:21:37
Speaker
the most violent components of patriarchy that destroyed somebody's women, whether it's as workers or as sexual targets on campus or whatever. And I think there's something inspiring about that because
00:21:58
Speaker
What folks won't find in this book are playing with and expanding lazy tropes that reinforce, I don't know, for me, retrograde thinking. So do you see this activist in that sense? And I mean that in a positive sense, in that there's a vibrancy towards action within the text. We definitely did not want to just
00:22:29
Speaker
be a retread of things that we should as a society be getting past. We examine the tropes, we talk about the tropes and how easy it is as a storyteller to fall into them, whether it's the trope of the Miss Havisham love Lauren spinster who is wasting away and melancholy for her life when in reality Gertrude Treadwell at the merchant's house
00:22:53
Speaker
made lots of life choices on her own and it was her own life choices that made her famous as a ghost and is the reason why the merchant's house is a museum and her house is preserved at all because of her eccentric choices.
00:23:06
Speaker
And because she was a spinster and lived 93 years in that house when all the rest of her station had moved uptown or moved out of New York City entirely She held down the fort in this in this townhouse on 4th Street that's like nothing else in the Eastern seaboard because of the way that everyone else was sort of keeping up with the you know, respective trends of the time and she just
00:23:28
Speaker
kept everything quote unquote quote unquote exactly as papa would have liked it in a time capsule of the 1870s when she died in the 1930s um and it's just an incredible thing for but but we're interested in like sure we're going to talk about the fact that she was referred to as a sort of mishapishum character even during her lifetime but we're not going to stay with those things we're going to we're really interested in unpacking and we are interested in um a
00:23:56
Speaker
an examination of these stories that give the women their voice and their agency. If that is activist, then fantastic. We're just trying to get people to think about these things. We're not coming at it with a specific agenda other than trying to be as truthful to these women's histories as we know how.
Ethical Engagement with Ghost Tours
00:24:13
Speaker
We don't know all the facts, and in the case where we don't know all the facts,
00:24:17
Speaker
We say we don't know all the facts. We know that we're not going to be the definitive end of story for these uh History is still rewriting itself. We realized the merchant's house Specifically there was something that they as a museum found after our book was published and they said, you know what? We just found something that even we didn't know and it changes one of their narratives and so we're going to have to wait to like a second edition to be like by the way, uh, the merchant's house found a letter about uh, you know gertrude's supposed long lost love that
00:24:47
Speaker
question some of the narrative of why they were kept apart in the first place. So anyway, history is always changing and it's always rewriting itself.
00:24:55
Speaker
So we're not interested in trying to have a, okay, here is what you have to think about this. We are very clear about trying not to tell you the reader what to think because while I am a bit of a believer in the paranormal, Andrea is a little bit more of a skeptic. We're sort of a good molder and scully team, which I think you should have going into this thing. But we really try to tell you not what, we're not interested in telling you what to believe when it comes to
00:25:20
Speaker
Ghost stories because you don't have to be a believer to appreciate what we're unpacking here This we're dealing with ghost lore that has been told and retold. So that is extant ghost lore You can completely not believe it and still get something out of what we're examining And so I do think making people think is is our in our mission. We're not trying to
00:25:43
Speaker
create some sort of specific agenda with it other than making people examine haunted places and make sure, we do hope folks will think twice about going on a tour that seems to exploit the dead or that seems to benefit from sort of titillation, especially at the expense of the vulnerable. I mean, if you're gonna go on a tour, a haunted plantation in the South,
00:26:10
Speaker
please only go and support Black tour guides who are telling you the real story. Don't whitewash history. History is painful. So I think that's, for us, our takeaway is like, please be careful how you engage in ghost tourism, because some of it is very exploitative, and especially towards marginalized communities. It can be additionally devastating, not just to those disrespecting the dead,
00:26:37
Speaker
and disrespecting horrific institutions throughout time, but also then disrespectful to the living who are still dealing with oppression in various capacities. So that's something that we try as best we can to engage with, but that's a tough, tough, thorny topic. But in this, I definitely recommend Taya Miles' Tales from the Haunted South, because Taya Miles really grapples with this in a really, really incredible way.
00:27:06
Speaker
If that's something that you want to kind of dig deeper on, please read Taya Miles. It's T-I-Y-A-M-I-L-E-S, Taya Miles, Tales from the Haunted South. It's one of the things that we reference that several times in the book.
00:27:19
Speaker
Thank you for mentioning that, too. I was thinking when you were talking about that, Off Forgotten largely recognizes first African-American author Charles Chestnut in his writings. And I'm thinking of offhand stories such as the Gufford grapevine and the idea of the conjure, which is a little bit different historically.
00:27:42
Speaker
But I thought right off the bat of those type of vibrant stories, they don't feel tied to the time and language the way that it's written with the dialect.
Personal Reflections on History and Safety
00:27:52
Speaker
And I remember way back then some wordplay with those words there that was subversive to power. So I always liked that bit. One thing I wanted to mention too about saying something like you're talking about labor laws, and we'll talk about art next.
00:28:11
Speaker
I did an episode with David Bellino, who did a documentary on what's called the Station Fire in Rhode Island from 2003, which had a personal connection to a friend of mine, a family friend, lost his life in that. He was a metal DJ.
00:28:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's you know, it is recently the 20th anniversary, but I want to tell you just a bit just sparked in my mind, you know, since that that incident and the way that the way that Bolino had done his documentary was to be like, yo, when you go to these shows, look where you are. Right. Like life or death, life saving type thing. And
00:28:56
Speaker
I think there's a cavalier attitude I probably carried around other people carry around that needs to be Shocked and disrupted. I saw somebody and I don't get into what people online but somebody had made a comment kind of making Fun of somebody who wouldn't go to a particular venue because the way it's situated and how there's one exit in the back And there was making fun of her. I'm like yo I'm like yo you gotta understand and it was just like I never mentioned just like hey a friend of mine died type of thing but it was like
00:29:25
Speaker
And the thing is, what I knew, what was so shocking, when we talk about the time that things went up, the sound insulation in the station, that concert hall that went up there in that, was made of almost the most highly flammable, it was basically like block gasoline. And the station venue went up in 90 seconds.
00:29:50
Speaker
You had 90 seconds from the first spark to get out of that building. And so for me, I grew up in Rhode Island. And I'm not trying to stereotype or anything like that. But a lot of places you grow up, there's tired practices. And there's certainly many pockets of corruption in the state that I could tell you.
00:30:11
Speaker
I knew as a kid right you buy your car registrations from somebody in this well you also buy your fire inspections and you buy your fire chief and they never go in and inspect and this is twenty years ago and it's yesterday and it's the place down your street. So when you say those type of things and we drop into that it's like yes it's my feel pandemic it over pandemic or overbearing.
00:30:35
Speaker
But it's like shock go this can happen in 90 seconds, 10 minutes, 20 seconds. And a lot of times there are people who talked about it before it happened, who marched before it happened. And I think that's like that inspiring point is like some of the vitality, the things that we're talking about. I thought about the station fire and we're talking about, you know, it's it's it's.
00:31:03
Speaker
It's a hellscape. And so I thought about that. And that was really that was really an important point for me. The other one, the other bit I want to mention is that types of ghosts and stuff I grew up, I have some Canadian, French background, Québécois. So they, you know, folks, my mom's side would come down to the mills and that's kind of aggregated in the southern New England.
00:31:32
Speaker
area.
00:31:33
Speaker
And, you know, it's like my old, my grandma, my Nana, you know, in the Memes, the French-Canadian, in the stories, and they speak partly in French and such. And it's such a history that I remember connecting to. So when I was reading the book, I was very happy to kind of go from different type of places and different type of encounters.
Art and Creativity Discussion
00:32:01
Speaker
We've talked a lot.
00:32:03
Speaker
about the industrial. So let's jump from the industrial, not that it's opposite, but I wanted to talk to you about art. And you create, you do a lot of different, I even saw jewelry that I started to order, but then jumped on to the interview. Leanna, what is art? What is art? Where's art? Well, that's, see, it's a good thing that my introduction section to
00:32:33
Speaker
Uh, oh, honey history of my visible women mine reduction section is titled existential questions Because I think that I think that you just asked one um as in what is it so so the the what is art um is is is kind of the the trick question of all trick questions because um art is
00:32:57
Speaker
really in the eye of the beholder. You're not making art. You're not doing art. You're not performing art. You're not of any kind without an audience. And some people might have art specifically very, very privately. Well, then you are still the audience then. And you're doing something for some sort of reaction that you're getting for you. Generally speaking, art is usually intended for an audience. And so it really is a conversation.
00:33:28
Speaker
The art is never definitive because everyone can see the same piece of art. And I know from having, you know, I have 16 books out and there are all kinds of different reviews for all of my books that all have very different opinions about the books that they read. And some of them are lovely and some of them are nasty. And I have to I have to just let that be because everyone's going to come at a piece of art and they're going to take away something different.
00:33:54
Speaker
And sometimes I will inadvertently push a button that they didn't want pushed, or I will make them feel a way that they were excited to see written, a type of inclusion, a type of writing about a particular type of spectral experience that made them feel seen. I certainly have that when I'm telling my own ghost stories and talking about my relationship to the paranormal when people say,
00:34:22
Speaker
I'm so glad that you have had that experience because then I don't feel crazy I just feel like it's a conversation and it's never finished because you make a piece and then that whatever that is For as long as society is still standing. It hopefully will be out there in some capacity. So That's you know, I I was raised with a healthy
00:34:46
Speaker
appreciation for art history. Some of my earliest memories are sitting with my dad and one of his art books for college and going through and talking about composition through all of the great, you know, many of the great artists through time. So, you know, that was, I've had that conversation about what does this mean often? And
00:35:09
Speaker
It means something different for every type of art, every type of music. And certainly there have been questions about
00:35:18
Speaker
what art is that have gone into the court systems. Constantine Brancusi being one of them, his sculptures, he had to argue that they were art to get them out of a customs. I think he was trying to get them through customs. And he was like, no, this is art. I've made these. And the court was like, no, it's not. And he's like, no, no, really, these are my sculptures. It's abstract art. So those things do have these really interesting
00:35:48
Speaker
real world follow-ons when the question gets caught up in legality and red tape and all the, I mean, you know, Maplethorpe being another one, you know, the photographer who, you know, nudity
00:36:04
Speaker
That was big. I'm from Cincinnati, so that's where that all started and got really touched off a huge national thunderstorm about obscenity in art. It's been a little bit of time, Leanna. Do you want to give a little bit about that since it's connected to where you are about the maple thought? Well, I don't know. I'm not really very well versed on the history, but basically there are very
00:36:32
Speaker
explicit photographs of the human body that Maplethorpe exhibited. And they're beautiful photos, but they are of various intimate parts of the human body and of different racial backgrounds as well. And this very much got people pearl clutching in somewhat conservative Cincinnati, Ohio. And so there were charges of
00:36:56
Speaker
basically sort of obscenity law charges. I don't know actually what they brought because I don't know how the history of obscenity law going into this. But that was, as I was growing up, that was like in the background of things. So that was something that, again, asked the question, what is art?
Art's Role and Challenges in Society
00:37:17
Speaker
and there's always going to be gatekeepers about what that means and who gets to be an artist and you know and what is art is going to change from one culture to the next and one time frame to the next. But just for me it's a conversation because I don't think it ever stops nor should it ever stop in the same way that like I think that we
00:37:39
Speaker
If you're a writer, if you're any kind of creative person, I think you also need to be a lifelong learner because you can't, if you're trying to be writing about the world, you need to keep living in it and learning from it. And so I don't think that that should ever end either in the same way that the conversation about what is art and what does that mean to you at this point is this big open-ended existential question. Yeah. Thank you for your thoughts on that. I remember
00:38:05
Speaker
One thing I liked about Maplethorpe, in addition to his photography, were his ironic titles because it'd be like, man wearing a too small overcoat and the band's manhood's all out there. I'd be like, I like that trick you're up to, buddy. Right, right, right.
00:38:23
Speaker
I like what you're doing. Okay, Leanna, hearing your comments about what is art, a question I have connected to, and I heard communication in your answer, but I want to ask the formal question, what is the role of art and in particular
00:38:45
Speaker
Has that changed now? Is it now? Is it different today, 2023, or is it holding the same weight or it's always doing the same type of thing with its role?
00:38:59
Speaker
that's really contextual to every single time period. I mean, I write a lot of books set in the Gilded Age, working class artists in the Gilded Age. And so what art was at that point for a lot of people in the arts and crafts movement was a way to make a living. And for some women in the arts and crafts movement, it was a way to make a living without having to become a housewife to do so, if they didn't want to.
00:39:25
Speaker
So I think in a lot of ways art has been a way of freedom and creative expression and in some cases employment through since the dawn of time. So I think that the
00:39:38
Speaker
What cultures revere artists and how they do that's changed a lot. I do think that in this country Because we don't have state-sponsored arts in the same way Art is relegated to a luxury in ways that europe has europe has held art a bit more sacred and other countries around the world like public rants and things right race has publicly funded the arts and
00:40:01
Speaker
Yes, we have the National Endowment for the Arts, but it's constantly under attack. And it constantly has to justify itself for its funding. And so I think that in this country, we've been made to feel like, you know, if you're going to school, I went to school in rural Ohio. And so the first thing to be cut where the arts programs never
00:40:19
Speaker
the sports programs. So arts funding was, and I think that kids should have access to all things. I think sports are great. I think that's a great program. I just think that kids should have access to all of the programs. I was not good at sports. So I feel like I couldn't. That was not something I could do.
00:40:38
Speaker
So I think that you're made to feel sometimes in this country, like art is a luxury, like it's meaningless, like we shouldn't be paid a working wage for it, which is a conversation happening right now with the writers strike, the pending Hollywood writers strike, you know, and also to the crux of the true horror of
00:40:59
Speaker
the AI-generated stuff where taking the creative element, the human element out of it entirely, which is a whole other horror show. But people worried about every single invention. People freaked out about the printing press and people freaked out about the industrial revolution and people freaked out about the digital revolution. And we're constantly having to have these conversations about what does this mean for us now? And I have to believe in the resilience of the human spirit.
00:41:27
Speaker
But I also have to make sure that we are trying to, you know, those of us who are in the industry are trying to take care of each other as best we know how.
00:41:35
Speaker
And yes, organizing is a way that we can look out for one another. I think it's really cool that with the AI generative art stuff that I think it was University of Boston came up with a program called Glaze, which is like a digital layer that interferes with AI trying to manipulate your art, which is really cool. And they were like right on it and it was free. I think it's still free for artists to download.
00:42:02
Speaker
and to utilize it as a way to disrupt someone trying to steal your art for their programs. Basically, for those who are unfamiliar with the AI thing, it's just artificial intelligence programs were scouring the internet for various images without copyright protections and without
00:42:23
Speaker
asking for permission from the artists and using them as training models to create different art off of things that were in fact copyrighted material. So and the copyright is there not to be a gatekeeper, but just so that artists can be compensated for their work, the copyright laws are in place for just for people to be able to get
00:42:42
Speaker
to get royalties, to get income, to get licensing income off of the things that they have created in the long run. As an author, I get royalties off of books, a certain percentage off of things that are sold. If those books are uploaded onto the internet, that's through internet piracy, then I probably will lose my book contract because they won't be able to report sales. Everything's about numbers, and if your book doesn't earn numbers, then you don't get another book deal.
Publishing Insights and Author Support
00:43:10
Speaker
Not everybody understands how the industries work. And I've, you know, I first started getting published professionally in 2009. And I've always been traditionally published rather than self-published because I've wanted, you know, coming from a theater background, I wanted a cast of people. I wanted an editor as my director. I wanted a team of people to help me with a book. I didn't want to just do it by myself. I think self-publishing is great for people to get their work out there. But I have always wanted a team of people
00:43:39
Speaker
Making something happen together and and you do have some protections and insurances and some people who are Helping you protect your own work when you are in an environment like that, especially with my age my wonderful agent Who is actually the reason why we're talking because Sarah Megabo connected us so Sarah Megabo big shout out. Love you Sarah. She's the best and
00:44:01
Speaker
And so yeah, K.T. literary is great. So I think that all this to say, the way we can keep looking out for each other is making sure that we understand how art is changing, not to be afraid of how it's changing, because it's going to change no matter
Artists' Resilience in a Digital World
00:44:18
Speaker
what. We can't stop change. What we can do is try to protect ourselves in the meantime.
00:44:22
Speaker
And the more that we can do so in terms of a collective, things like class action lawsuits. I mean, Getty Images is going after some of these artificial intelligence models that were trained off of images that were protected under copyright law. So it's interesting that things do have consequences. All of us are going to have to see 10, 15, 20 years from now, where is the role of the artist in our ever-changing world?
00:44:52
Speaker
In the meantime, art isn't going anywhere, and so keep making it. But it's been hard because I've talked to a lot of artists and a lot of writers who have been feeling very, very hurt by online conversations that are making artists feel disposable.
00:45:07
Speaker
And that's the case across any industry that is looking to mechanize. And that's been the case going back to since the Industrial Revolution. There's been a fear of making workers irrelevant. And that goes for artists too. So all we can do is just try to navigate the landscape as best we can, keep our footing.
00:45:31
Speaker
and make sure that you are in community with others who can be looking for ways to shore each other up and look for protections in the case of if protections are in fact necessary.
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah, it brings up significant massive ethical questions. I even thought of the hypothetical with when there's enough record of your voice, which for me, there certainly would be. I've done the equivalent of six and a half days of shows if you listen to it directly over four years. Ken's voice is completely duplicatable, which I never thought I'd say that.
00:46:09
Speaker
and so maybe yours could be with all the stuff that's out there and then the conversation that I dialed up that you had and I had and all that stuff, people could hear it as if, I mean, it ain't gonna sound at a certain point any different as of whether it really happened or...
Personal Ghost Stories and Industrial Spaces
00:46:23
Speaker
didn't happen, which brings up a massive question of composition. I wanted to mention something to you, Leanna. This is about my connections with ghosts, and I'm going to tell you right at the beginning, boring as hell.
00:46:48
Speaker
So I was, as you might maybe surmise, an imaginative kid. I loved the horror and sci-fi and comic books and all that type of stuff. I just loved the spooky stuff and ghosts and everything.
00:47:05
Speaker
I always, when I was younger, I thought I'd pretend I wanted a disposition towards contact, right? And me and my people work, people refer to me as an empath with how I engage with them in energy. But in my head, when I think about this, I always said, well, if that's there, I can have it in other realms, but I don't have
00:47:28
Speaker
those type of experiences. And the one thing, though, was an experience tied to a place that suffocated me, temporarily. So I went to a school at Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a few blocks from where Jeffrey Dahmer's Killing Grounds, which was an apartment on the north side, was located. And I remember, and this is, and I can give you the buildup in the background, right?
00:47:57
Speaker
November, Milwaukee, of course, that industrial, you know, composition there, chilly, stark. And what we're talking about is the absence of a building. And what a profound experience was for me, because I couldn't like, I was standing across, I wanted to capture the image. And it's an image I can see right in my head right now. And I actually did a project off of it.
00:48:24
Speaker
with a gentleman named Donal Mosher who does. I did a short class with him regarding. I think it was like the spirit of the place, right? So we're talking places and residual. And so I had that photograph and I added some components for this super weird horror kind of like art project, real art project. But it was connected to my experience there.
00:48:51
Speaker
I'm looking at nothing. I'm looking at the absence of something that was there.
00:48:59
Speaker
nothing grabbed me, nothing like that. It was the loss of ear in presence of what what was. That was the experience. It was like that big experience. And I never expected that which, you know, just feels so different than the type of things you talk about with other folks who are super sensitive and be like, when I was here, here's what I saw. And this is the kind of conversation I heard, you know, for me, I don't
00:49:23
Speaker
I don't have that and I don't lament that I probably scare me too much so it's okay but I had that one experience and when we're talking about the industrial in that background that stuff is so present for me like an industrial city and those old apartment buildings or tenements and stuff withhold all that energy for generations so
00:49:46
Speaker
Like I said, not a ton of except, but that was my, uh, like I, I still don't know about, about that one, but it sure made me think from the time it happened to the present. It's that's incredible. And thank you for sharing that. It's, it's, you're not alone in, uh, an experience like that. Um, it isn't as common as the traditional ghostly figure wandering about. Um, but that sense of place memory and seeing a building,
00:50:15
Speaker
that isn't actually there, that there is a record of hauntings like that that people see. And it usually happens when you are not expecting it. I think for me, because I don't go in, I think when people really desperately want to see something and they really are invested in trying to capture the paranormal, that's usually when, you know, ghosts are like cats. They're not going to perform on command.
00:50:39
Speaker
So there that's helpful. That's helpful. By the way that they really aren't saying that thank you. It's true They're they're really not and so so so people that want to see things the most very often will not because it's like that almost that desire Will either mean that your imagination is gonna play tricks on you and you can't trust what you're seeing because your imagination will plant it there because you want to see something and
00:51:03
Speaker
Or it's that and that that desire is actually going to to sort of put a distance between you and a potential spirit contact So for me every single time that anything strange has happened It has been when I have not been looking for it have not have have been focusing on something else um, and then seen something out of the corner of my eye or it's just It's just sort of a routine thing And then it's my routine is interrupted by something inexplicable
00:51:32
Speaker
I think for you and I think for other people who have very specific kinds of hauntings, because I do believe what you experienced was a haunting and that you had, that was a place memory, that was a residual energy that because you are in tune with that industrial landscape, it was there because you're on its wavelength. So I really think that
00:51:55
Speaker
for some people they're going to see the things that are in tune with the things that they're passionate about and in some ways that's going to kind of conjure something. Sometimes I've had like a couple of really beautiful little encounters and one of which I talk in in Haunted History of Invisible Women when I just get really excited or almost have a clamped about something and
00:52:14
Speaker
And I had this fond little touch on my elbow and it was just one of these things. I had such a sense of this fondness in this touch, but this touch was ice cold. And it happened because I was lovingly talking about the merchant's house. And I turned thinking it was my friend and there was no one there.
00:52:31
Speaker
It was just a beautiful red settee that I later found out was one of the most haunted spots in the building. But it was just this little fond goose on my elbow that was just responding to me bursting out about how glad I was that this building was saved because everything had almost been auctioned off and we almost lost it to history.
00:52:54
Speaker
And so I just got really emotional about the concept of having lost this treasure. And it was sort of like this little goose that was like this little touch that said, we're glad that you are...
00:53:04
Speaker
that you care about it too. And I don't know how I could sort of intuit that in the touch, but you know sometimes when there's sort of a sentiment that carries with a touch. And again, I wasn't looking for that. I was caught up in the emotion of the house, but it's like that emotion of the house conjured this sort of fondness of wanting to connect with me about this place that these spirits also love because it's a very active house. And so clearly the spirits don't want to leave either.
00:53:26
Speaker
And I feel like that's kind of a piece of like we were tuned in in that moment to something that mattered, that we were appreciative of. That building knew that you would see it because you have seen other spaces like it and would consider it in a light that it would want to be known. Like I was part of this industrial landscape too.
00:53:50
Speaker
Yeah, I well, and I really, you know, honestly, in conversation here in that is it really just stimulates it stimulates my mind because it's kind of like so. So I like I mentioned, I grew up in Pawtucket and like, you know, where you grow up and how you connect with places like it always kind of confused me because I go to the places in town that are the opposite in general of
00:54:16
Speaker
not all the time, but I go to places that I'm attracted to because they look like that industrial, because they're hollow. Like, I think of David Lynch, and you know, photographs of industrial space in a racer head, which makes so much inherent sense to me that I don't think can make the same type of sense to other folks. So when you mentioned that, maybe connection or maybe love or desire for
00:54:42
Speaker
for it, or maybe love for it, like the industrial. Maybe there's something tied simply to that. It's almost like you conjured it because you knew. And it revealed itself to you because you were tuned into it. And I think that there is something to be said. If you go in with an open heart to haunted places, you will have kind of an astonishing
Respectful Approaches to the Spectral Realm
00:55:05
Speaker
time. You might not necessarily have an actual spectral encounter, but if you go in with love,
00:55:11
Speaker
in your heart for the past to sort of reveal itself with an air of respect. And that's the core of the mission of both Andrea's company, Burroughs the Deige. That's her ghost tour company. It's a company I work for. I was her first hire in the company. And so I
00:55:28
Speaker
watched as the company continued to grow and then we teamed up for this book. But we teamed up because our ultimate, our core principle is respect for the dead above everything else. And some of these paranormal TV shows where these sort of ghost bros are going in and yelling at
00:55:48
Speaker
The provocation thing, right? It's the provocation and it's aggressive and it really turns me off. I can't watch any of that stuff. If you're yelling at a historic space, I cannot watch it because it's just so disrespectful to the debt and it's disrespectful to the building that you're in. Very often that has very troubled history half the time. So it's also disrespectful to history and people that suffered there and any of these things.
00:56:13
Speaker
that I just can't, again, respect has to be at the first and foremost. So I think that that's why you had the experience that you had. And I'm sure that they're going to have others in your life at other points and moments when you least expect it. Because it's not something that happens, again, like they don't perform on command. It's not something, even though I work in the spectral, my actual inexplicable experience is,
00:56:41
Speaker
Or maybe, you know, I can maybe count them on one hand. I've had a bunch of them. I've had other ones where the jury is out, like maybe there were other things in play, so I can't say unequivocally, no, no, no, this really was a spectral experience. But I don't need to have a certain tally.
00:57:02
Speaker
to believe in the paranormal, but I also believe in science. And so I don't think these two things are antithetical at all. And I think that sometimes the spectral realm and anything that's related to it is just a part of science that we don't know yet. There's a whole lot of theoretical physics that sounds a lot like ghost stories in some ways.
00:57:21
Speaker
And some stuff about other dimensions and various other things. And we might just be glimpsing something that's bleeding over from something else. I have no idea. Again, I'm here for the divine mystery. I love the existential question, remaining a question. A big question mark is fine with me. I'm not someone who needs to know all the answers because I don't think we're going to get them. And I don't think that expecting them is going to help them get here any sooner.
00:57:51
Speaker
So I feel like in that way, I'm very comfortable with that existential question and very comfortable with that divine mystery, but that really unsettles a lot of people. So I also want to respect that that's not, people aren't necessarily comfortable in that space. And that's understandable too. I just happen to be comfortable with them. So then it's good that I work in an unprovable area.
00:58:19
Speaker
I Know and I like the the placement that that you mentioned of Questions because there's different things different ways to look at them and I think I don't know what it is I find maybe because of my propensity to ask them to be professionally trained in them to be Unintimidated in asking them of any person tends to like really look conspicuous because there's an idea that questions are
Existential Questions and Embracing Existence
00:58:45
Speaker
Invasive, of course, they can be invasive inappropriate questions. I think behaviorally that is improper to ask but just in the sense of Asking questions is there's there's always some aspect of provocation of You know of and and of opening up and also the unexpected, you know on your on your side
00:59:11
Speaker
or mine. So I want to hit the big one. I think we're running into it like right about now. And the question is, why is there something rather than nothing? And you don't have to answer it absolutely given your condition statements before this about these type of questions. So the existential of why is there something rather than nothing? Yeah.
00:59:39
Speaker
Okay, well, I mean from just a practical term, in just a practical way, there is matter.
00:59:50
Speaker
Matter is tactile. It's tangible. It's here. Our interaction with that matter is constantly changing. That's what's kind of interesting is that even matter and even tactile things are not completely static. Atoms are still bouncing around. So I think that
01:00:10
Speaker
I'm not a scientist, but I really like to use science terms when I'm talking about existential things because it's really like, yeah, well, there's also a whole lot of things that science can't explain. Like the 21 grams that just disappears from a human body after the human body passes, we still don't know where that weight goes. We still have no idea. Is that the weight of a human soul? I don't know.
01:00:33
Speaker
Um, but but that's a quantifiable something um, and so I really think for me um The the something is uh
01:00:44
Speaker
is trying to always be appreciating these some things that are always around me because I prefer that to nihilism, personally. But that's my choice. I try to be a relatively optimistic person. I'm a perky goth.
01:01:05
Speaker
I grew up in the goth scene in the 90s, and so I feel very attached to some of those terms of like, okay, this is who I am. So I may look, I'm always dressed in black, and I may look like I'm going to be
01:01:21
Speaker
in a permanent state of melancholy because of the way I dress, but I am in fact bouncing around and generally very, very excitable. There sometimes can be an antithetical in that, but I find in that antithetical, that's where I'm
01:01:40
Speaker
I am myself sometimes a question and and puzzling to people because they'll see how I dress or how I look and then my and and then there's a Excitability or a bubbliness or um, or an absolute, you know Passion for the material that I work in rod of eve in general very much so and so I I prefer to live in that those spaces rather than
01:02:05
Speaker
the thinking of the void or the abyss. Part of that is too, because I did also grow up struggling with some depression, some clinical stuff, something that kind of ran in my family.
Spirituality and Positive Beliefs
01:02:18
Speaker
I was aware of that, that it ran in the family, but it was the same time I wasn't, it doesn't help you deal with it any easier. So I've had to make an active choice not to let that, basically the voices of nothing kind of drag me into that space. So I'm going to be much more focused on the things that I can either control or that I can
01:02:44
Speaker
work on, which is my art and my storytelling, that that keeps me going forward. Because it is, for me, it is a choice to do that. Because I do understand the flip side of all of this, I very much do. And so I'm choosing to
01:03:03
Speaker
believe in the something. And I am a very spiritual person, and that something and that spirituality is very open. It is entirely interfaith, cross-genre, as long as it's loving and not exclusionary, as long as it's something of care and tenderness and not violence, then we're all good. I really appreciate the point you just made. I think back to, I had a recent episode
01:03:31
Speaker
friend of mine Daniel Kern who I actually went to school with at Marquette and it's interesting because You know, I'm I don't you know politically I don't know what I am, you know, like kind of off the chart, you know Marxist I think you know generally but um, but the thing is is um, you know Dan was a conservative minded and
01:03:57
Speaker
Christian who taught me so much and I had him on the on an episode recently and one of the one I read his book which was really a practical practical guide to Christianity talking about like issues that make no sense whatsoever that seem to be conflicting within maybe traditional doctrine and
01:04:22
Speaker
But the one idea that I maybe had encountered before is he had made a declaration. It was like the idea that if the God that is presented shows themselves to be unworthy, they're not worthy of worship. So it's the depictions of the type of Christian God where if it goes against our basic values of what we would look for God in and of itself as an argument for a lack of duty to worship.
Mortality in Art and Philosophy
01:04:49
Speaker
And I'm like,
01:04:49
Speaker
Wow, like I mean, I really I really got a kick out of that. I thought of one other point. I've had Lorman Rhodes on the show a couple of times, and I was really influenced and adored a book that made me really feel comfortable after reading. It was Morbid Curiosity, Curious the Blues, which was a journal, I believe, or a small magazine publication.
01:05:14
Speaker
back there, but the duality components, right? I don't want to say duality. The common assumptions around, you know, like death or contact with these type of things is that it's necessarily extractive of you or dour or maudlin, which it can be, which it can be. It can be tied to other type of things. But there also tends to be a reactive energy that I see to this, right? By coming in contact with the cemetery, be like,
01:05:43
Speaker
Shit i'm gonna end up there someday. Maybe I should paint a painting or something today. You don't like that. It has this of Vitality uh to it and I think that's where the philosophy is and I think that's where things are Are interesting? Um all this to say I was in portland last night Outside the door of the coffin club for my joy division new order uh dance party, but
01:06:11
Speaker
It was at capacity. They told me to come back in 20 minutes and I'm getting a little bit tired and older and I didn't go back in 20 minutes. So next time I'll make it to the coffin club. Uh, so I appreciate some of your comments. Please go. Yes, please go in my stead. I would, I would have loved to have been there for that, but at least, at least they told you it was at capacity and they were actually honoring their fire code going back, bringing it all back.
01:06:40
Speaker
Going all back. At least they told you.
01:06:44
Speaker
You know what? And I should have validated him and uplifted him at that moment, but I was too disappointed. I would be disappointed. And too thinking of my own self to recognize his greater social acts. Yes. So this is one of those things where this is a takeaway for any of our listeners who would dare to make fun of someone for not going to a place with one exit or would harass someone when a venue is at
Cultural Themes in Liana's Writing
01:07:11
Speaker
capacity. Think twice because they're actually looking out for you.
01:07:14
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Hey, I wanted to say with regards a couple other little points to the book, I appreciated the medal references that I found within haunted history of invisible women. Now, so hearing a little bit of doom medal reference for me was very enjoyable. And of course,
01:07:40
Speaker
the what I did what I saw to be unfortunate contact with Megadeth fandom and Tying to some desecration of places but heavy metal and its connection to to some of this I Wanted to ask you Leanna now when you said when you
01:08:04
Speaker
You had started writing. I had been going through what you've written. And there's a lot. And there's a lot of there's there's and steampunk and all these realms. Tell tell the tell the listeners because they're going to they're going to hear our way of trying to do an interview for this amount of time with each other. But all those other realms. Can you tell us about how you know,
01:08:34
Speaker
the books you have, how people find them, your website, things of that nature. Yes. Yes. So we've been talking about my nonfiction, but I have 16 fiction novels out. And they're all sort of a gothic, gas lamp fantasy kind of feeling. So by gas lamp fantasy, we mean like a Gilded Age setting, but fantastical things.
01:08:58
Speaker
Generally speaking, ghosts. So the one unifying characteristic of all of my work is that it all features ghosts and a lot of it features real history. So I create paranormal worlds in which, or realistic worlds in which paranormal things happen. And sometimes those paranormal things are actually taken from some of my real experiences. I'll just sort of heighten them for the purposes of Hollywood, as it were.
01:09:23
Speaker
But so my website is just myfullname.com.
Liana's Work and Reader Engagement
01:09:30
Speaker
And I'm also on social media. And you can find my books wherever books are sold. So I have several different series that are out. And they all have crossover characters. So you'll find characters that go from one series to the next. You don't have to have started
01:09:49
Speaker
You don't have to have read them all in any certain order, but I would say um That you would want to start with book one of any of my respective series On my website on the front page of my websites there I I have left a question for you that I try to answer which is where to start with liana's books and so I I say I basically say if you're looking for this kind of vibe
01:10:13
Speaker
If you're looking for sort of a Gothic Victorian Ghostbusters with Jane Eyre kind of feelings, then you're going to want to do Strangely Beautiful. If you like the concept of Victorian ghost detectives and sort of the alienist meets ghost detectives, then you'd want to start with the spectral city. So those, I basically sort of say some of the backdrops and the feelings of each of those various books. I also have a bunch of work
01:10:39
Speaker
that I've done the audiobooks for on a site called Scribed. So it's scribd.com and that is a subscription service. But you have access every month to thousands upon thousands of things. So I have narrated my own audiobooks on several different speculative fiction series.
01:10:59
Speaker
So I have a real range of things there, things that are time slip, things that are steampunk and dystopian and all kinds of different cross genre things there. And you can do a free trial for 30 days. So if you're curious about that site, that's scribe.com. But also my website curious about it. I am curious about it.
01:11:19
Speaker
So yeah, so I'm sure that there'll be a link that you'll, I'm sure you'll put my name up on the, and my website up on our show notes. So I'm also active on Twitter and Instagram, so you can find me there. Just look up my full name and I should come up. And if folks have questions about my work, you can drop me an email via my website, or you can ask me via social media.
01:11:44
Speaker
you know, depending on my deadlines, which I have four of them that I'm going into, I will try to respond to any sort of appropriate, it has to be an appropriate message for me to respond to it, but any questions about my work? Yes, let's have that as
Francis Perkins and Labor Reform Legacy
01:11:57
Speaker
a threshold. Yeah, let's just have that there as just a bit of a guardrail there. But yeah, so I really love fiction that deals with found families, ghosts,
01:12:11
Speaker
sort of a cast of characters with their own quirks who all have different talents and specialties coming together to save the day. So everything that I write has a hopeful ending, something that goes through dark places to get to a better place. I have horror elements in all of my work, but I don't stay in the horrific place. I use it as a way to get through to something that ends up trying to be positive and hopeful.
01:12:37
Speaker
That's the place that I want to try to get to personally, so I want to take my readers with me through that. I thank you so much for that, and we'll include that in the show notes. I did have one question for you because I think it's very important. I wanted you to answer the question why it's important that folks should know the name Francis Perkins.
01:13:02
Speaker
Oh, Francis Perkins. Okay, so we're going back to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire again for a moment. So, Francis Perkins had been working in what was at the time in New York City, basically like a
01:13:18
Speaker
kind of consumer protection agency. She was sort of trying to protect people who were buying services, sort of like a better business bureau kind of position was what she'd been working in in New York. And she was kind of well-placed and had good connections. She was at a cafe around the corner from the Triangle Fire when it started. And she came out and she watched the horror unfold from the sidewalk.
01:13:49
Speaker
And she stopped what she was doing and she went on national tour with Al Smith, who was the mayor of New York and went into labor union meetings and went into factories around the country in industrial cities and started formula.
01:14:09
Speaker
basically started formulating the nation's first labor laws. She then became the Secretary of Labor under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and she was the first female cabinet member in our nation's history. And she would go on to say that the New Deal began the day
01:14:31
Speaker
the triangle burned. Now, the New Deal, of course, was this sweeping legislation lifting this country out from the Great Depression. And it was a huge time for labor unions. It was a huge time for just general works across our nation, public parks, all kinds of public services. So her saying the New Deal began the day the triangle burned, she was
01:14:57
Speaker
keeping that horror in her memory and was working to honor the dead for the rest of her life.
Shared Union Values and Future Collaborations
01:15:06
Speaker
Thank you so much. And it's so nice. And it's nice to address you as a sister union member. This podcast is produced with Union Labor, Peter Bauer.
01:15:22
Speaker
Is the editor and producer union labor and union labor from guest host and so we got it all around I want to really share that and connect obviously in that way and You know whether it's labor or the other stories from the past when things went wrong or that injustice. I really was invigorated by the idea of activism or the reminders of or the presence of
01:15:53
Speaker
the women that you obviously try to make visible or trying to make themselves visible in the work that you do. So it's just been a really great pleasure to talk to you, Leanna. And like I said, this is a way of doing one of our episodes together at this moment. And I'd imagine maybe the next time we talk, we'll be a different type of way, which might
01:16:18
Speaker
touch on only a couple of the things that we talked about. Who knows? It'll probably still be ghosts or some sort of spectral phenomena. Even in, you know, next time I have a book out that's fiction, I'm pretty sure it's still going to have supernatural phenomena of some kind. I can't, it seems that that winds its way into everything that I do. So it's
01:16:42
Speaker
It's definitely a core theme. It's interesting for me that I'm one of the few people that my non-fiction work and my fiction work really do go directly hand in hand. A lot of how I talk about the spirit world in A Haunted History of Invisible Women
01:17:00
Speaker
I I have my heroine eve whitby Live live into that in her work in the spectral city series So there's and you know, which is set in new york, um and where i'm a ghost tour guide and I walk You know, I sort of walk the reader through some of the most haunted places in the city almost as a bit of a tour guide while you're while you're reading um, and I think that you know, so for me the
01:17:22
Speaker
The non-fiction work that I'm doing and I'm interested in doing is going to continue to feed the fiction and vice versa. So I'm sort of pleased to be existing in this space where I don't feel like I have to choose between a non-fiction or a fiction mindset.
01:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. That's a unique space, protect its borders, right? Yeah, right, right. We've been talking with Liana, Renee Heber, and it has been a great pleasure. I know you've got a lot of stuff going on with your book. It's being recognized. Of course, I wish the book and what it does, what it does, great success, a new great success.
01:18:14
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.