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True Crime Part 3 with Kate Winkler Dawson
141 Plays6 days ago
In this week's episode, Brook and Sarah are joined by author and lecturer Kate Winkler Dawson to discuss true crime.
Discussed and mentioned
American Sherlock (2020) Kate Winkler Dawson
Death in the Air (2018) Kate Winkler Dawson
All That is Wicked (2022) Kate Winkler Dawson
The Sinners All Bow (2025) Kate Winkler Dawson
The Scarlet Letter (1850) Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Ghost Club (2023) Kate Winkler Dawson
About Kate Winkler Dawson
Website: https://www.katewinklerdawson.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katewinklerdawson/
For more information
Instagram: @cluedinmystery
Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
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For a full episode transcript, visit https://cluedinmystery.com/true-crime-3-with-kate-winkler-dawson/
Related episodes
True Crime Part 1 (originally released January 31, 2023)
True Crime part 2 (originally released February 7, 2023)
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Transcript
Introduction of Kate Winkler Dawson
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Brooke. Hi, Sarah. I am honestly fangirling a little bit today because we have the wonderful Kate Winkler Dawson with us.
00:00:29
Speaker
Yes, I'm so excited to speak with her. Welcome, Kate. Thank you. I appreciate you all having me. I'm like very excited to talk about mystery. I usually am, you know, people don't say mystery with my books, but that's what this one is. So thank you for recognizing that.
00:00:45
Speaker
Definitely. Okay. I'm going to tell everyone a little bit about you if they if they haven't already heard of you. Kate Winkler Dawson is a seasoned documentary producer, podcaster, and true crime historian.
00:00:57
Speaker
She's the creator of three hit podcasts, Buried Bones, Tenfold More Wicked, and Wicked Words. And she's the co-host of the popular Buried Bones podcast. Kate is the author of several true crime books, including American Sherlock, Death in the Air, All That is Wicked, and most recently, The Sinners All Bow.
00:01:17
Speaker
She's a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. And from that bio, everyone can understand why I'm a big fan. And I'm super excited to speak with her today.
00:01:28
Speaker
Thank you again. I appreciate
Discussion of 'The Sinners All Bow'
00:01:30
Speaker
that. and So, Kate, why don't you kick us off with a brief introduction to your book? ah Sure. So the book is called The Sinners All Bow, and it is two authors, one murder, and the real Hester Prynne. So already you see it's a complicated title. There's a lot happening in this story, but...
00:01:50
Speaker
um It's about a woman named Sarah Maria Cornell who was found hanging on a desolate farm in New England in 1832. And there are a lot of mysteries going. One, you know, was she murdered or did she take her own life? If so, why?
00:02:06
Speaker
for both of those questions. um And so there's that mystery that you have to untangle. i am working with a co-author, which was a new experience for me, who has been dead since 1872, which is definitely a new experience for me.
00:02:20
Speaker
and And I use this woman, um this woman's work, Catherine Williams, because it's outstanding, but I start to not trust her um because I want to know kind of what her motivation is for writing her own book about Sarah's case, because it seems very, very one-sided.
00:02:37
Speaker
And then finally, you know, the case inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write one of the greatest books in history, which is The Scarlet Letter. And um the main character in The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, was patterned after Sarah Maria Cornell's story, which is very tragic.
00:02:54
Speaker
Maybe we could start with you sharing what initially drew you to the case of Sarah Maria Cornell and how you discovered that connection to Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
Discovery of Sarah Maria Cornell's Case
00:03:08
Speaker
Well, initially, a listener to one of my shows emailed me and said, you should look at the haystack murders, the famous haystack murders. And so I Googled it and Sarah's case popped up because um she was hanging from a haystack pole, ah which is you know, a farming, involved in farming. It's a farming tool.
00:03:26
Speaker
And so I said, oh, my gosh, this story is incredible. It's sort of Me Too movement. It's a woman who was pregnant from a sexual assault who's demanding money from her attacker, the father of the baby.
00:03:39
Speaker
And then she ends up dead. And the big question is why? and I was attracted to the story because, you know, this is a um this is something that could happen today. I'm sure has happened and will happen.
00:03:53
Speaker
Women statistically are at their most vulnerable when they're pregnant. The number one reason why women who are pregnant die is murder, which surprised me.
00:04:03
Speaker
So already you're talking about somebody who's very vulnerable. And then when she's finally standing up for herself and making these demands, she's dead. And then her character is impugned, I mean, in an awful way from women, no less, to get this Methodist minister to be acquitted.
Societal and Religious Challenges in Sarah Cornell's Story
00:04:20
Speaker
So she is, you know, posthumously um really ridiculed and, you know, slut shamed and everything that you can think of. So when I came back to this listener and said the story of Sarah Cornell is incredible. Thank you for passing it on. She said... what are you talking about?
00:04:38
Speaker
That is not the haystack murder I was talking about. She was talking about one that happened, you know, in the 1920s in the Midwest where this guy killed his doppelganger and set his car on fire next to a haystack to fake his own death. And so I said, well, thanks anyway i appreciate wow for the tip anyway. I appreciate that. But, see you know, Sarah's case, when you when you read about it,
00:05:02
Speaker
you often hear that it is a big fight between mainstream mainstream Protestants and the newfangled Methodists who were wild and crazy, as hard as it is to believe in the 1800s.
00:05:14
Speaker
And really, it's a lot deeper than that. I mean, it really is about a woman who was doing the best she could in really bad circumstances. And, you know, when she finally tried to take control, the control was taken away from her.
Bias in Historical Narratives
00:05:26
Speaker
So, Kate, you refer to Victorian writer Catherine Reed Arnold Williams as your co-author in this project. Can you explain this unique collaboration and how her 19th century narrative influenced your work?
00:05:40
Speaker
but Sure. You know, when I was looking at first primary sources, firsthand sources, which is, you know, documents from that time period, it could be trial transcripts, it could be letters, it could be journals, it could be memoirs. And in this case, Catherine wrote a book. She was a poet.
00:05:58
Speaker
who took up Sarah's case and had just an you know unbelievable amount of access. And she ended up writing a book that had two printing runs because it was so popular in 1833.
00:06:11
Speaker
And it was um what I would call journalistic advocacy. So her reporting was great. She did all of this accurate reporting, but it was so clear from the very beginning that um you know she was very biased and she really felt strongly that Ephraim Avery, the Reverend who was accused in the case, um was a killer.
00:06:33
Speaker
And you know her evidence was not, when she would go through evidence, as a journalist would, She didn't seem to be weighing the evidence to decide guilt or innocence. She was weighing the evidence, really only the evidence that would prove that he was guilty.
00:06:50
Speaker
And I wasn't so sure. You know, there was this is a woman hanging from a pole. She was pregnant. She certainly would not have been the first person to take her own life out of despair. um And, you know, I wondered how much evidence there really was against him. So, you know, when I read Catherine's book, I said to my editor, she has to be a major source for me.
00:07:10
Speaker
So Sarah's family spoke to Catherine and basically no one else. They gave her letters that I don't even think the prosecutor had. She interviewed character witnesses who hated Ephraim Avery, but they were accurate.
00:07:23
Speaker
She had a really, really in-depth interview with Sarah Cornell's personal physician, who was the one who knew all about the pregnancy and the sexual assault. So she had all, she went to John Durfee's farm. That's the opening of the book. You know, he showed her where,
00:07:37
Speaker
Sarah was found. So there were all of these just exclusive is the only way to say it details that, of course, there's no way I'm going to be able to get. And I wanted to be able to use. And I um told my editor at Putnam, my um I said, you know, I almost think she needs to be credited on the front cover. And she said, I don't think we can do that for legal reasons.
00:07:58
Speaker
but We don't want to get sued by her family or whoever. But, you know, I understand your inclination. And why don't you think about making her a co-author in the book? And, you know, I said, I think that's a good idea because a lot of this is about integrity and journalism.
00:08:12
Speaker
You know, I really wanted to look at this case with an open mind. um And then I wanted to, you know, weigh the evidence using 21st century forensic experts, which Catherine, of course, didn't have.
00:08:24
Speaker
I have family members, including Catherine's family members, because I wanted to know who she really was. have family members, contemporary ones, who could tell me kind of the aftermath of what happened in this story. Of course, Catherine never knew a lot of this.
00:08:36
Speaker
um And then I just have my experience as a journalist and my instincts. And, you know, so so Catherine had this amazing information. But like I said, if, you know, you have somebody from the very beginning who is going to look at if you've got Brooke, who's going to be looking at all of this information from Catherine and she reads the book and it's this amazing information.
00:08:58
Speaker
incredible narrative story with all of these facts exactly the way I would have written it, you know, um you read that you are immediately convinced that Ephraim Avery is guilty based on bad evidence.
00:09:11
Speaker
Now, whether I think he was morally guilty is completely different than whether I think he's legally guilty. So, you know, that was what i I was trying to approach from the very beginning.
00:09:22
Speaker
Why does she feel like this? what How can I trust her? Can I trust her? What is she doing wrong? And of course, it was just very nerve wracking because I've said this in other interviews. I have a hard enough time policing myself. Now I've got this lady I got to deal with, too. And whether or not she's lying to readers when she's writing about
Inspiration for 'The Scarlet Letter'
00:09:40
Speaker
it. And here she is, one of my primary sources.
00:09:43
Speaker
So it was an interesting way to attack a book. I've never had this angle before. hmm. huh Do you suspect that Nathaniel Hawthorne read Catherine's book?
00:09:55
Speaker
I I think that there are so many um parallels between Hester Prynne and Sarah Maria Cornell. I think that he thought of Hester Prynne as the kind of person that Sarah Cornell could have been had she not died.
00:10:12
Speaker
So, you know, someone who being pregnant and, you know, um Sarah was not a perfect victim. And I think Catherine was trying to turn her into a perfect victim because in 1833,
00:10:26
Speaker
In order to to influence a reader who had been so influenced by the Methodist leaders and, you know, the women who were taking the stand and calling Sarah a slut and crazy and vindictive. And she took her own life to frame this poor Methodist minister. She didn't. I mean, these are people who Sarah thought were her friends, the people she worked with in factories. Yeah.
00:10:48
Speaker
That same thing happens if you read um Scarlet Letter. And it's not an easy read. One of my friends who got halfway through the book texted me and said, did you actually read the Scarlet Letter? went to high school together. and We both remember it being really difficult.
00:11:02
Speaker
And I said, yes, I did. and it But when I'm reading it and looking for clues to Catherine, really is you know what gave me a lot of clarity. There were just so many parallels between Hester Prynne and Sarah Maria Cornell. Everything from, of course, i mean, the main character besides Hester Prynne is a reverend. It's Arthur Dimmesdale.
00:11:22
Speaker
And, you know, of course, there she had been pregnant. She's literally up on the scaffolding, you know, um the scaffold being ridiculed by the women. And some of the most um endearing things about Hester Prynne were the same about Sarah.
00:11:38
Speaker
So, you know, Hester um would do needlework and there were people who wouldn't make eye contact with her on the street because of the Scarlet But at night or, you know, secretly, they would ask for her help.
00:11:50
Speaker
And she was incredibly altruistic. And Sarah was the same way. Catherine found a story about a woman who was boarding Sarah. And, you know, a lot of the problems Sarah had started with a theft, a couple of different thefts.
00:12:03
Speaker
And that was a capital offense in the 1800s. Luckily, that didn't happen to her, but her reputation was sullied after that. It just would never recover. So then once you're a thief, if you're seen with a man and in ah any kind of an improper way, which there's she had had said, i've I've never slept with anybody except I was assaulted by the minister.
00:12:24
Speaker
um But anytime you are seen as in any way improper and you're a thief, they kick you out. So this woman um who was her, um who was ah the matron who ran the boarding house, saw Sarah talking to some man, he was flirting with her.
00:12:41
Speaker
And ah Sarah will lee wasn't responding, but it was enough for the, for the woman to say, you got to get out of the boarding house. You can go tomorrow morning when a coach comes. And Sarah was weepy and said, okay,
00:12:52
Speaker
But then there was a ah sick person in the household and nobody in that household seemed capable of taking care of this particular relative who was dying. And Sarah stayed up with them all night long, even though she was getting kicked out.
00:13:05
Speaker
You know, so she and she gave a lot of money to the Methodist Church, way more money than she had. So there were there are these sort of that kind heartedness. The, um you know, Hester Prynne at the end of Scarlet Letter sort of settles into a community, not necessarily happily, but there's like a contentment.
00:13:23
Speaker
And I think that would have happened with Sarah, too. And I think Hawthorne thought that also. I think he thought it was a tragedy, ah a story um that he had written that we see play out in Sarah's own story,
00:13:34
Speaker
about just the impossible standards that society had for women in the eighteen hundreds and And we frankly still have in some cases here.
Research Challenges in Historical Crimes
00:13:44
Speaker
What are some of the challenges that you face, Kate, when you're researching historical crimes and how do you overcome those?
00:13:52
Speaker
I think it's difficult. There's no overcoming for me. I teach journalism at the University of Texas. And when my students are picking stories, I reject them constantly. I must be not very good for their self-esteem.
00:14:04
Speaker
And but I always do it nicely. But I'm very picky about the stories I say yes to because... Why would you start already at a deficit? Why pick a story that you know you don't have enough sources for?
00:14:17
Speaker
When I pick stories for my own books, I make sure I have a really, really deep well of sources. Otherwise, I can't do the book. I have friends who have one friend who did a book based pretty much solely based on contemporary of that time period, 1800s newspaper articles.
00:14:35
Speaker
Which, you know, people complain about the accuracies these days of newspapers. You should try reading something from the 1800s. I mean, my goodness, there's like 19 different ways to spell one person's name and none of them are right. And it's sensational.
00:14:48
Speaker
And I just it did it was not an impressive book to me because there wasn't the personal part of it. There were quotes that he could have gathered from newspapers. But, you know, I need journals. I need letters like Sarah's letters to her family,
00:15:02
Speaker
um She kept anonymous letters from, I presume, Ephraim Avery, um who got her out to Durfee's farm, which is where she ended up dead.
00:15:13
Speaker
So, you know, i had these sources as well as back in the 1800s, any Yahoo could go and sit in on a trial and take a transcript and then go out and sell that transcript. So I had probably nine to 10 trial transcripts.
00:15:28
Speaker
That's what I mean. I had to police her, too, because then I had to she would make a claim in her book and like something that maybe Dr. Wilbur, who was Sarah's physician, would say. And then I would have to go to the trial transcripts where he was quoted because he took the stand and make sure that Catherine was accurate.
00:15:46
Speaker
And she was. But what she really was doing was conflating things that she shouldn't have been. You know, Sarah only, according to Catherine, thieved once when in reality it was more like three or four times that.
00:15:56
Speaker
And, you know, again, trying to create the perfect character. Sarah never, according to Catherine, considered terminating the pregnancy, which was not true. She did. And we know that from the trial transcripts. So that's what I mean by she was sneaky. Catherine was very sneaky.
00:16:10
Speaker
But um with, you know, my sources, if I don't have a massive archive, like with American Sherlock, my second book, i had 110 boxes at UC Berkeley. So I knew i could cover all of these cases in incredible depth.
00:16:23
Speaker
um People oftentimes say, well, you're making up some of this, right? No, it's a nonfiction book. You can't call it nonfiction if you make up anything. I pick stories that have a lot of research um done and I have archives and photos pictures.
00:16:38
Speaker
Contemporary interviews from, ah you know, academic articles. And then, of course, newspapers are always helpful, but very rarely are they a ah big source for me. So I sort of, ah what's that saying? you don't You know, if you stay ready, you don't have to get ready. That's kind of my attitude about books. I'm not going to do anything that I don't think is is going to have just a ton of information for me.
Structure and Credibility in Kate's Book
00:17:00
Speaker
So in true crime, just like fiction, the way a story is structured can shape the reader's perception of guilt, innocence, and justice. How did you approach structuring The Sinners All Bow to maintain that suspense while staying true to you know the historical story?
00:17:18
Speaker
What's funny, somebody said to me the other day that my prologue is one of the more interesting creative prologues that she's read. And it's because it drops you into, you know, Sarah's location of where she died.
00:17:32
Speaker
And Catherine and I are both there, which is absolutely true. She was in the exact same spot I stood, the same tree, to see where this woman died. We were just, you know, 150 years apart. Yeah.
00:17:43
Speaker
And um I wanted to be pretty clear from the beginning that I was working with another journalist who I think is sneaky. And I needed to know what were her sources? What was her thinking? What was her background?
00:17:56
Speaker
um You know, like I said, it turns out she really hated the Methodists. It wasn't just Ephraim Avery. It was all Methodists. And um she acknowledges kind of at the end of her book, well, some of them are probably okay. but I don't think this story helped her perception. She was Episcopalian and she really was against the Methodists.
00:18:12
Speaker
um And so, you know, when I structured it, I really wanted to start with Catherine to frame it as the co-author thing, but also that I have a very good source from the beginning. And that's why this book is so personal. I don't think she made up quotes. I don't think she made up letters. I don't think she made up interviews necessarily.
00:18:33
Speaker
I just think that she was... um Because she was not as trustworthy as I wanted, i sort of unfold that in the middle of the book as I'm finding out more information. And there's a ah a big reveal at the end of my book that I found out kind of last minute, which is who hired her, which were the factory owners.
00:18:53
Speaker
That's who hired her. And these were people who were members of the mainstream Protestant churches. And um they also hated the Methodists. And um they were scared that if Ephraim Avery were acquitted,
00:19:05
Speaker
that families, dads would not send their daughters to go work in the factories. And this is Jacksonian era, the industrial age. All of these factories were popping up in the Northeast and the factory owners figured out that women were cheaper than men. They weren't out getting drunk and having sex.
00:19:21
Speaker
They were used to being told what to do. They lived in boarding houses. um And so, you know, I was really trying to build that world um from the beginning where we find Sarah Cornell dead and the way that investigation goes.
00:19:36
Speaker
And you know at the same time, I'm investigating Catherine as we're moving along and I'm moving along with my book and she's moving along with her book kind of in tandem. That's when sort of doubts pop up for me about Catherine and and you know what her reliability really is.
00:19:53
Speaker
i don't think that she was malicious like I think some content creators in true crime can be. And for me, this is also...
Ethics and Motivations in True Crime Content
00:20:02
Speaker
A little bit of a reckoning.
00:20:03
Speaker
I think there's so much crap out there. um People who can, you know, spend $200 and make a podcast and they're disrespectful to the victims. They're too graphic when they don't need to be.
00:20:15
Speaker
They re-traumatize family members and go knock on the door. you know of Gabby Petito's parents or whoever trying to to look for answers when they have no journalism background, no law enforcement background.
00:20:27
Speaker
And so you know with Catherine, I was really looking at, I tell my students when I teach true crime, look at the motivations, why people are doing a podcast or writing a book.
00:20:38
Speaker
Why are they doing it? I mean, we just, God, talked yesterday to my true crime podcast students about um deep fake AIs who take children who were murdered and turn them into AI characters and look at you in the camera and tell how they were murdered by their parents or whoever. And it is beyond traumatizing. It is awful.
00:20:58
Speaker
And those are the people I'm talking about. And there are too many of those out there. And so I was really trying to determine... what Catherine's motivations were, was it to sell books or did she really believe that Sarah was, um you know, a a character who was worth fighting for?
00:21:13
Speaker
Because there was one comment that is forever disturbing to me that Catherine quoted from a member of the ah somebody who was just in the public watching the trial who said, this is not a woman who is worth having a murder trial over.
00:21:27
Speaker
And that's, you know, it's a pretty profound thing to say, disgusting thing to say about someone. So do you think ah you would work with another co-author the way that you worked with Catherine Williams?
00:21:39
Speaker
I was actually just thinking about that. I'm looking into doing a potentially an audio book on a really famous case in London. And P.D. James wrote about it. And you guys have to know P.D. I mean, like one of the most famous mystery-ish writers ever. And it was her only nonfiction book.
00:21:56
Speaker
And man, I'm fascinated by that case. And I'm fascinated by her. i i don't know if my editor would go with part two of, you know, Kate complaining about an author and then ultimately settling on what a great co-author she is. But maybe there's a British... um author who I loved, who wrote so much at the turn of the century about real life murders. And, you know, she was a journalist and a stenographer and and a lawyer and all of this stuff.
00:22:22
Speaker
So I'm, I'm not opposed if, you know, my editor said, yeah, this sounds great. I'm definitely not opposed to it, but, um, I don't know, working with a contemporary author, maybe I'm interviewing next week, Marsha Clark of OJ Simpson fame, maybe Marsha Clark Or so I interviewed Patricia Cornwell because she wrote a book on Jack the Ripper.
00:22:45
Speaker
And I would do a book with her on in a heartbeat. But that's pretty much it. I think i'm it's Marsha Clark or Patricia Cornwell. That's about it. little picky. um Just as an aside, I read one of the fiction books that Marsha Clark wrote and was really impressed with. Really?
00:23:02
Speaker
like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I didn't even know she wrote fiction. She she did. she She wrote a series of, it's almost set up like Law and Order because there's um the police investigation and then the trial part.
00:23:17
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Okay. Well, I'll have to tie. So I interview her on Monday. So I'll have to talk to her about that. But I have so much respect for her as a prosecutor. i'm very excited. Yeah. and And her podcast is good. I've listened to to quite a few episodes of those. Oh, good.
00:23:31
Speaker
So have you found that true crime audiences also read crime fiction or are those demographics mostly separate? So I have one of my closest friends whose name is Scarlett and she listens. She's never really been into true crime, but she listens to all my shows. And now she reads true crime because she likes Wicked Words where I interview like you guys do, i'm you know, interviewing authors.
00:23:53
Speaker
And um but she is like the queen of reading cozy mysteries. mean, loves them, loves them. And so I do think there's quite a lot of crossover. And people often ask me, why is um why is the largest audience for true crime? is it It's women.
00:24:11
Speaker
And the estimates are wild. It's like 70 to 90 percent. You know, in our research, because we know demographics of our our people who respond to advertising seems to be about 75 to 80 percent, at least on my network, ah which I believe that's i hear from 70 80 percent women And I think that, um you know, my my ah female listeners like a good mystery.
00:24:35
Speaker
i think it's a cop out when we say, oh women just listen to true crime or watch true crime because they want to know how to protect themselves. I think most of us know don't walk in a parking lot by yourselves at night. I mean, you know, there there's a lot of comments and stuff, but I think women like a good mystery. I think we like a puzzle.
00:24:52
Speaker
ah i think we like drama. And so there's, you know, quite a lot of this this in mystery, obviously, and in true crime. So I do think there's quite a bit of crossover, sure.
Upcoming Projects by Kate Winkler Dawson
00:25:04
Speaker
You've already kind of touched on some future projects that you're considering, but is there anything else that you wanted to share with us about what you've got upcoming? You know, um yeah, I have, I love audiobooks.
00:25:20
Speaker
ah So, you know, I kind of joke, I'm on my fourth and a half book. I did an audiobook called The Ghost Club, which is an audioud audible original. And I don't think my publisher had ever done one of those because they were kind of like, do we, is this a pamphlet? It's 30,000 words, not 90,000. Do we print this? And um that, that audio book did really well. And so I'm definitely looking at doing more of those.
00:25:42
Speaker
I'm wrapping up my first novel, which is a mystery thriller, um which I've never done before. It's terrifying, but also incredibly fun to do.
00:25:53
Speaker
And it's an exploration of a forensics area I've never delved into before. My main character is a a forensic botanist, which actually there's no forensic botanists are really botanists who just get drawn into cases.
00:26:07
Speaker
And so, um you know, the most fun I think I had had, even though I adore the sinners all bow, the most actual fun I had writing a book was American Sherlock, which is about a forensic scientist who works in the nineteen twenty s And so I thought, well, let me, you know, go back and and think about that. And so there's actually, I would say, just about as much research in the novel the as in one of my nonfiction books, because I had to learn all about botany.
00:26:34
Speaker
um It's not really written about very much. I think kind of people think it's a throwaway area of forensics, and it's incredibly valuable. So, um yeah, that's interesting, really interesting. um And so that's been a different experience for me.
00:26:47
Speaker
Somebody asked how writing a ah mystery novel is different than... writing nonfiction. And, you know, for Sarah, Sarah Cornell, I can't make up who she is. Who she is is who she is. i have quotes from her She was a great writer.
00:27:03
Speaker
um i think she felt really badly for herself in some of her circumstances. She was really lonely. Her family was not responding as quickly as they could have to her letters.
00:27:14
Speaker
um And I think there was some acrimony there. But who she is is who she is. And if you like her as a character, it's amazing that she existed. um i can't make Oscar Heinrich from American Sherlock more charming or less annoying and less of a jerk.
00:27:29
Speaker
He is who he is. i mean, I have these sources and and the only thing I could do with Oscar Heinrich was um like find out that he sang in the choir, which I found kind of charming and that he adored his you know sons and here's why. And he was going broke trying to send them all over the world.
00:27:44
Speaker
But in a novel, you have to really be, you know, good and convincing with who your characters are. Otherwise people are going to say, nah, this is just a crappy kind of detective, you know, fiction.
00:27:57
Speaker
So it's a lot harder to do nonfiction in that way. But luckily, because I have such a deep background in true crime and history and, you know, nonfiction stories. It wasn't as hard as I think it could be for other people, just because I just know I understand the structure. I understand the way people talked, you know, in this time periods. And so, so it was exciting to do.
00:28:17
Speaker
So I'll be back on y'all's show. It might be a year or two, but we'll, so we'll see. Yeah. That sounds fantastic. So is your book set in contemporary times or is it historical?
00:28:28
Speaker
Yes. I mean, I love history and there are historical elements to it. My idea for the what I hope would be a book series is to take one major case in history as the backbone of it. And then I would love to kind of do an audio book about the real story behind it.
00:28:46
Speaker
um which are all worthy stories. So there's no flashbacks or, you know, characters set in in history, but we do have to talk about history an awful lot. And so, you know, that's where I'm most comfortable. But then, yeah, the characters are are modern day characters, which was very exciting.
00:29:02
Speaker
Very fun. Yeah.
Where to Find Kate Online
00:29:05
Speaker
So let's just wrap up Kate by you sharing where listeners can find you. I'm not on X. um I am on Instagram and Facebook ah along with the podcasts.
00:29:17
Speaker
And, you know, my ah website is Kate Winkler Dawson.com. And that's where you, you know, the, lot my books are sold everywhere. um and so, yeah, that's where you'll find me.
00:29:29
Speaker
We'll put a ah link to that in the show notes. Good.
00:29:34
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Kate. This has been so much fun, and I love the idea of having you back. There are many, many topics we could talk to you about. Thank you. i appreciate that. I'm ready.
00:29:46
Speaker
Well, we would love it. And we hope that you loved today, listeners. But for now, thank you for joining us on Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah.
00:29:57
Speaker
And we both love mystery. Clued in Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a ri review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app.
00:30:12
Speaker
Visit our website at cluedinmystery.com to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued in Chronicle, or to join our paid membership, The Clued in Cartel. We're on social media at Clued in Mystery.