Mythology & Ancient Origins
Both Play of Shadows & At First Light are built on fascinating ancient symbology (SGH suspects the middle book is also).
Barbara Nickless, tell us about your background.
Do you have any experience in these things or does it all start from scratch?
Deep Research, ala Dorothy Sayers
Barbara Nickless goes extremely deep into the symbology used in her books, to the point of spelling out hundreds of viking runes, transliterating them, explaining the process, noting variations in meanings. The same for the Cretan hieroglyphs, untranslated scripts, etc.
Barbara Nickless, can you talk a bit about your research process?
Is there a specific genre associated with this type of writing, outside of a typical police procedural?
Do you have any authors that influence you in this type of writing, or that you look up to?
Dwarfism
One driving portion of the narrative is that the main character, Evan Wilding, is a person with dwarfism.
Barbara Nickless, tell us about your choice to make your semiotician a person with dwarfism?
Much of Evan’s thoughts center on his small stature and how it affects him in the world. How did you research this perspective? Do you review your manuscripts with people with dwarfism? Over the course of the three books, how would you describe your comfort level writing from this perspective?
Recent controversy: Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs live action. Keeping them dwarfs perpetuates stereotypes, making them “magical creatures” takes jobs from the dwarfism community. Is Nickless familiar with this controversy, and what is her take?
Police Procedural
This seems an interesting pairing of a police procedural with a semiotician.
Barbara Nickless, can you talk about how you research police work?
Can you talk about how you research academia?
Can you talk about how you research falconry?
Sense of Place
The south side of Chicago, and Chicago generally, takes a central role. Barbara Nickless, talk about your relationship with Chicago. How do you feel now living in Colorado? Do you plan to write mysteries set in Colorado in the future?
The Evan Wilding Series
What are your plans for this series? Do you have more ideas in the works? How do you come up with your ideas?
Differences in Writing from Book 1 to Book 3
At First Light had a few vignettes into the killer’s thought process that were interesting. Barbara Nickless, can you tell us about that decision?
Voice in book 1 often switched between Addie & Evan, but were not labeled as such. How did it work to have two different internal narrators?
In book 3, we have insight into the thoughts of a variety of people, from the victims, to the killers, to multiple characters beyond Addie & Evan. These were labeled as such on the chapter pages? How did this decision develop?
The way you structured your killer in each book was very different. The third book had no surprise reveal. Was this intentional?
The Serial Psychopath
Both books deal with a serial psychopath obsessed with ancient myth and symbolism. Why the serial psychopath? What is the attraction to that type of character?
Both books, especially the 3rd, touch on how a psychopath develops. What role does that play for you?
Play of Shadows Themes Around Family
Brothers – Eddie & Billy, Evan & River, Lowell & Peter – Tell us more about what you were working with on these brother relationships.
Fathers – The decisions of the fathers for each of these brother pairs are very interesting, tell us more about what you were working with for these fathers. Billy’s father turns him in before he dies (murdered), but likely seems involved.
Evan’s father is such a turd. Compare the relative merits of an enabling father vs an absent one?
Single moms of boys – Jake & Colby – victims who weren’t searched for, were sons of single moms.
Barbara Nickless, are father figures playing a damaging role, and mother figures playing an impotent on?
Even would like to become a father one day, and deeply enjoys his time with children – is this a type of redemption or just happenstance?
