Helen Chapman/Anne Arrandale – Fifteen Second Feature #3

After a short break for summer vacation, I am excited to be back to the features with Helen Chapman, author name Anne Arrandale. She was lovely enough to send me her fifteen second feature and it is amazing. Her Monument City Mystery series draws from real life cases of human trafficking at the turn of the last century, giving voices to those who were never allowed the chance to speak out at all.

Helen Chapman (writing fiction as Anne Arrandale)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B5NBWQ3L
www.facebook.com/Anne.Arrandale

Tell us about the project/idea/publication etc. you’ve been working on:

Four years ago, I was looking for a song that was featured in Cat Ballou. I fell down the research rabbit hole, and stumbled upon a pamphlet published in 1909. That led to a book based on a case history in that pamphlet, Why Are You Weeping, Sister?

The characters wouldn’t let me along, continually yelling at me that they weren’t finished with me yet. So I am now finishing up a 24 book series (16 are out now, the rest in various staging of editing and formatting), and outlining a new series, based on the second generation of characters from the first series.

Confusing? That’s why I keep notebooks and Excel charts about who’s who, what’s where and who’s doing whom. The first series (Monument City Mysteries) started in 1909, and the last book is set in 1925. The next series (Tennessee Valley Mysteries) will be set in the 1930s, involving the CCC and WPA.

Tell us about any publications or finished works you would like to talk about:

 I write fiction as “Anne Arrandale”, as some of the scenarios originated in our law office. Non-fiction is published in my own name, because I don’t care if people know I’m a crazy cat lady (hence the name of the first cat book, Adventures of a Crazy Cat Lady) “I Love Cats” Magazine carried my column for twelve years.

What books and movies would you like to recommend?

Oh, lord have mercy! Movies: The Big Sleep (Bogart) and Murder My Sweet (Dick Powell.) River of No Return and Cape Fear (both with Robert Mitchum)

Books: Gaslight Mysteries & Counterfeit Lady (Victoria Thompson). The Bodyfarm series by Jefferson Bass. On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down (James Fell) and anything by Will Cuppy.

But given the choice between of watching a movie or listening to old time radio dramas, I’ll take the radio every time. 21st Precinct, The Lives of Harry Lime, Mysteries of the Black Museum, I Love a Mystery. Theater of the mind is way better than a flickering image.

Tell us something cool you’ve been into recently:

 Planning a 90th surprise birthday for my mother. Trying to keep up with the great grands birthdays, as we now have enough to field a soccer team with substitutes.

Tell us about an issue you’re trying to draw attention to:

Trafficking of children. The entirety of the Monument City series is based on various forms of human trafficking. Children stolen from their parents and sold into brothels, young women drugged and sold as well. Immigrants fresh off the boat being tricked into working for years without pay for years to pay for their passage and living expenses.

Tell us a few things about yourself that you are really proud of:

I worked a series of crap jobs from the time I got out of high school (Sound-ex clerk at Social Security, housekeeper, meat cutter, grocery clerk, survey taker, seamstress, boot maker, cashier among other things). When I was forty, I had an on-the-job injury and used the money to go back to school and got a degree in Paralegal Studies. People tried to discourage me, saying I’d be 43 when I graduated college. I told them I’ll be 43 in three years anyway. I worked 20+ years for a family law attorney.

Awesome.
Thank you, Helen.