Mediumship, Mystery & Murder with Carolyn Marie Wilkins

Step into the smoky jazz scene of prohibition era 1920s, near the Mississippi River—where secrets simmer, spirits whisper, and one woman refuses to stay silent. 

In this episode of Spirit Speakeasy, I sit down with medium, musician, and mystery writer Carolyn Marie Wilkins. We dive into her newest gripping supernatural mystery novel, Murder at the Wham Bam Club—a tale laced with intuition, injustice, and jazz. 

Carolyn shares how her background in mediumship and music inspired this unique story. 

We explore: 

– How intuition guides her characters (and her writing process) 

– Why she wrote a heroine who challenges authority and listens to her inner voice 

– What it means to speak up in oppressive times 

– The hidden spiritual messages layered into the novel for the reader 

– The role music and metaphysics play in both fiction and life 

– What most aspiring writers get wrong & her best advice 

If you love a good mystery with a metaphysical twist, or you're curious about the intersections of jazz, justice, and the unseen world—this conversation will inspire and intrigue you.

Show Notes:

Bio: Carolyn Marie Wilkins is the author of Murder At The Wham Bam Club, the first in the Psychics and Soul Food Mystery Series. Her other books include Death at a Séance, Melody for Murder and Mojo for Murder. Carolyn’s stories have appeared in Festive Mayhem and Wolfsbane: Best New England Short Stories of 2023.

She is a Professor at Berklee College of Music Online and has represented her country as a Jazz Ambassador for the U.S. State Department.

An initiated priestess of Yemaya, the African goddess of motherhood, Carolyn is also a psychic medium and Reiki Master.

For more about Carolyn, visit her web page or socials here:  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carolyn.wilkins.3114/ 

Instagram: @Jemaya7 

Website: https://www.CarolynWilkins.com 

To download the Free songs Carolyn created as she was writing: https://resonantwisdomservices.bandcamp.com/album/murder-at-the-wham-bam-club 

Get Carolyn’s first episode on Spirit Speakeasy: 

Mediumship Meets Jazz with Carol Wilkins' Akashic Trance Piano Healing

Listen now: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2084888/episodes/11835507

Watch the video: https://www.joyfulmedium.com/blog/mediumship-meets-jazz

Join me Live on Zoom for my Free Monthly Community Healing session! You'll receive a blend of Reiki (Energy Healing), Chakra & Aura Clearing & Balancing, Color Healing, Grounding, Cord Cutting, Trance Medium Healing & more. 

Get all the details & Sign up now to receive the link and replay for the next session! https://www.joyfulmedium.com/Events

Get Joy's Free "Sign Magnet" 3 Day Mini Course HERE https://www.joyfulmedium.com/sign-magnet
Joy's Website: www.joyfulmedium.com
Instagram: @JoyfulMedium
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Facebook: @JoyfulMedium
Facebook Group: Joy's Soul Spa
YouTube: Psychic Medium Joy Giovanni

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Transcript

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Joy, hey, beautiful soul, welcome to spirit speakeasy. I'm Joy Giovanni, joyful medium. I'm a working psychic medium, energy healer and spiritual gifts mentor. This podcast is like a seat at the table in a secret club, but with mediums, mystics and the spiritual luminaries of our time. So come behind the velvet ropes with me and see inside my world as I chat insider style with profoundly gifted souls, we go deep, share juicy stories, laugh a lot, and it wouldn't be a speakeasy without great insider secrets and tips. You might even learn that you have some gifts of your own so step inside the spirit. Speak Easy. Hey, beautiful soul. Welcome in for another episode of spirit speakeasy. Today, we have an incredible guest. She was one of our first guests ever on the podcast, and she is a dear friend of mine. I'm gonna give just a quick intro, because I want to get right to our conversation. Today, we're going to be talking with Carolyn Marie Wilkins, and she has a new book that has just come out called Murder at the wham bam club. It is a period piece set in the 20s, the roaring 20s, and it is such a fun murder mystery with mediumship and so much more woven in. So we're going to really dive in and talk about her book. But I also asked her a lot of questions for anyone who is an aspiring writer of any kind, if you feel like you've got a book in you, or just like short stories, or just wondering how the writing process works. I asked Carolyn so many questions about all of that, and she even has some exciting additional little extras to share with us. So let's dive right in as we open up this conversation about murder at the wham bam club with the incredible author, medium, jazz musician and my friend Carolyn Wilkins, hey, beautiful souls, welcome back, or welcome in for another episode of spirit speakeasy. I am not gonna waste any time before introducing our guest today. Those of you that have been with the pod since day one will remember her as one of our inaugural guests. She's an incredible friend, Miss Carolyn. Marie Wilkins is the author of murder at the wham bam club, the first in the psychic and Soul Food mystery series. Her other books include death at a seance, which was super good. Melody for murder and Mojo for murder. Highly recommend all of them. Carolyn's stories have appeared in festive mayhem and Wolf Spain for the Best New England short stories of 2023 she is a professor at Berkeley College of Music online, and has represented our nation as a jazz ambassador for the US State Department, an initiated priestess of yamaya, the African goddess of motherhood. Carolyn is also a psychic medium and a Reiki Master. There's nothing this woman cannot do. Help me welcome Miss. Carolyn Marie Wilkins, how are you? Oh my gosh, Joy. It's such a joy and a pleasure to see you. How fun. Thank you for having me on the show. I'm so grateful to you for being here. So last time you were with us, we learned all about your history, how you became a medium. You as a jazz musician, you did a wonderful share of trance, mediumship, piano healing for us. So highly recommend everyone. I'll link it in the show notes. People can go back and check it. You had already been an author, and now you have a new book that's just released that I am so excited to talk about. Exactly well, I have to say, and just in case, yeah, there it is. It's called Murder at the wham bam club. And I have to say, I'm super excited. It's kind of rolled together all of my interests of being a psychic, loving jazz writing and, of course, a murder mystery. What could be more fun? Well, that's, I think, one of the most beautiful things, just knowing you over all these years, the way that you weave all of your experience. And I want to really just let everyone know I'm going to try my very best not to give any spoilers about the book, but we'll dive in enough that I'm hoping everyone will get as excited about it as I am. I just finished it. I want to start by kind of talking about Miss Nola, who is the heroine of our story, and she really is a representation of such a compelling mix of like intuition and intellect and resilience. How did her character first come to you and how much of her is drawn from your own life experience as a musician, a woman of color, a medium I want to know everything. Oh, joy. What a great question. Question, she's a great character. Well, I she, I wanted to write a psychic character because, of course, I'm a psychic, but at the same time, I did not want her to be like a super psychic, where she knew everything. And, you know, because then there would be no mystery to the book. She would know everything. She'd know who all the bad guys were, and right, it would sort of not be any fun. So she had to be this combination of both knowing, but at the same time innocent a little bit and looking, seeking, plus she's only she's not quite 21 she's like 20 and a half or something. So she's fairly young, but she's also feisty. She did run away from her small town and elope with a soldier during, uh, right before World War One, but her husband was killed in the war, and now she's back home in the small town where she grew up, where which she kind of likes, but she kind of doesn't like. She's lived in Harlem up in New York City. She's seen the bright lights in the big city. So she's a little mix of both a home girl, but also with a little bit of sophistication and a lot of spice to her. She's not afraid to sort of speak her mind when things bother her, and sometimes that gets her in a little bit of trouble also well, and I will say, just for everyone who hasn't read it yet, the way that it's written, you really get that flavor and that sense that she doesn't have all the experience in the world, but she has, you know, moved away from home at one point. That's where we're finding her in the story too, as we step into it, will you just kind of set that scene a little bit with the time period and, you know, you just said that her husband has just passed away. When we're finding her, she's just kind of returned home in this really crossroads of a circumstance for her. Talk a little bit about why you're so impassioned about that time period, and also just set the scene for us a little bit. Yes, so the book is set in the roaring 20s, okay, just almost exactly 100 years ago, 1922 and for those who maybe are not so deep into the history, they had just passed, Congress had just passed a law called prohibition that made liquor illegal. They made all the bars close. You could not serve liquor and stuff, and the end result of this was that people drank more than ever. The goal had been to eliminate drinking and stuff. But sometimes when you ban things, it makes it actually worse. So everyone and their brother was breaking the law in some way or another. People were making like whiskey in their bathtub. There were all these places called speakeasies, where you would go to get your illegal alcohol. And along with the illegal alcohol, many of these places also had jazz, which was the hot Cha, hotcha music of the time, right? Well, and as we're recording this the Michael B Jordan movie sinners, was just out at the beginning of the summer, and that's very juke joint. Absolutely no, yes. Very similar, right? Very similar. I that was a fortuitous circumstance. Who knew that how that movie would come out, and that movie also has a lot of African folk magic, if you will, some of the magical practices reading the bones and hoodoo, which is also in my book as well. So my character comes back to this town, which was kind of a sleepy, boring town when she grew up there, but now, due to the fact that the war is over, there's a boom in need for labor, and a lot of African Americans are moving up from. The south to come live in this place, which is at the very tip of Illinois, the very southern tip, right on the Mississippi River. And in this place called agate, which is, by the way, a fictional place. Don't look for it on the map, because it's not there. It's kind of a cross between k row, Illinois, which is a real place, and Edwardsville, Indiana, which is another real place, but it's this, I made a fictional place, but folks are moving up there, and they're looking for work, and they're coming in droves, and with them, they are bringing both a labor force, but it's also with them is coming naive young girls who have never had any experience In the city, and they maybe, you know, 1415, years old, and they've just been in the country, and now they moved to the city, and where you have that kind of population and that level of illegal activity, you also have crime, and you have these pimps who were basically seducing young girls and then turning them into prostitutes. So all of this is going on so the town is not nearly as sleepy and boring as it was when Nola grew up there. On the other hand, it's also a lot more dangerous, and there are gangsters, and there's rum runners and just a whole lot of crazy stuff there. So I have to say, I one of the things I love about this book as I was I told you, I use an app that reads the book out loud to me, just because it helps me process, and it allows me to use some of my gifts and see the pictures myself like an old fashioned read does. And I just felt like this book is such a jewelry box of all these beautiful, different, you know, you were saying you've got the beautiful, you know, boom of industry. But then you've got the underbelly that's coming in, and then you have this incredible, very fiery jazz component, and the way you use the language is really revealing. And I mean, sometimes very sharp, sometimes very moving. There's, you know, themes of justice and race, inequality and mediumship and just the dynamics of relationships. So it's, it's so layered that I really love it, because, like, just like you were saying, all of these things are happening at once, and it doesn't feel overwhelming at all in the writing, it's just so nuanced that I like, I'm so I'm so proud of you. Thank you, Joy. Thank you so much. And, yeah, you really got it. And at the same time that all this craziness is going on, my character also works part time at a catering company. She's moved back home to live with her aunt, who is a bonafide hoodoo practitioner, what they call a conjure woman. And if you saw sinners, you know how the woman in the movie kind of threw the bones and did that, her aunt is that kind of a woman. These are some of the things I love, because I know some of this work. And as you're I'm like, Oh, that is, that's right. Like, that's because you do have the personal experience and the understanding of all of it. So I love the way you weave it in, in such, like, a realistic way. Yes, thank you. And so my character works for this catering company, and because she works at catering company, first of all, I get to talk about food, which is always fun, right? And as caterers, they can enter a lot of different homes and different places where they otherwise would not be able to go. So among the places where she goes to work as a caterer is a woman who is a very wealthy spiritualist. We had to have a spiritualist in there because, you know, we're psychic mediums. We had to do it. But spiritualism was also very much on the rise in the 1920s why? Because they had just had a war, and so many young men had been. Taken from the planet so young, right? And people were sort of searching for answers. And among the things that happened was that they went to see mediums and psychics to try to get answers. And some of those mediums were ethical, and some of them not so much. So that is also a piece of the story as well. Well, okay, this brings me to one of my many questions on my list. You're a medium, as we know, and Nola, as you mentioned, is clearly gifted, and starting to uncover some of those gifts herself. How did you approach writing the spiritual or psychic elements? So they felt really authentic, like I was saying to our actual mediumship experience, but also grounded and not too over the top for readers that you know, maybe it's not their vein of belief, for example, that's a great question, and I only another medium would ask me that question, because yes, I'm sure you have also read books or seen movies in which the characters were psychic or whatever, and they would do stuff, and you're like, really, yeah, not so much. Man, exactly, you know. So I wanted to make it realistic, yet at the same time, I found that in order to move the story along and bring the drama we couldn't have, maybe, like when you do a real mediumship reading, you get some right answers, but you also get some wrong answers, and you stumble around a little bit before you're able to bring the message and all that in. In this case, I had to have the characters get to the point pretty quickly, because we have to move the story forward. But I did try to bring at least some realism, and for Nola, particularly, because, as I say, she's an apprentice psychic. She's not a dental psych, yeah, she's not a full on 100% you know, bad character. You know she's, yeah, she's still unfolding. Yeah, unfolding. So you and I are both trance mediums, and I really loved how you described so we do get to experience a couple different versions of seance in the story, yes, and in one of those experiences, the way it's described is as though the person was moving through water, and it was though they were deep underwater in a place of Profound Darkness, and then All of the sudden they had an awareness of the emotions as they were channeling a message that felt very real to me as a trans medium. So yes, I loved that. Yes, yes. I think if you've ever been there and done it, I know you've probably had experiences like that, and I was happy to be able to share those little glimpses as well. Yeah, well, and the psychic side, obviously, is not the only piece of it. It just is. I think it's a connector to the murder piece of it. But music, jazz plays so much of a part of this, not just only as a metaphor, but also within the structure. And I love the way that the music really pulses through this book, and we even get to I feel like I'm hearing it and feeling it when the artists are playing or expressing their music within the story, which is so cool, and the music almost acts like this second heartbeat for me when I'm reading the story or experiencing the story. And in what ways did jazz you know, from your perspective as a very profound jazz artist yourself, both the sounds and the symbols? How did that influence I know everything from like the rhythm and pacing of the book to like the emotional arcs of the story, because it's really deep in there. Thank you. And I think at least some of that just comes because it's who I am. But that said, I really wanted to make particularly the scenes in the wham bam club. And by the way, my publisher did the cover art for this. Okay, just amazing to me. Very cool. It captures it. But there's such a life and a vibrancy in the club and in the music and then the Inter. Interaction between the musicians and the audience, people shouting out to the musicians, musicians shouting back. All of this is makes it very vibrant, and I will say also that I did write three songs that are sort of go along with the book. And okay, I was gonna ask you about this, so I'm glad we're talking Yes, I'm gonna give you a link to share with your awesome listeners, because they can download the songs, and they were just kind of jazzy songs that, to me, felt like they, well, one of them actually, the lyrics are actually in the book. And then I took those lyrics and put them to music, and then I wrote a couple of other ones as well crazy songs in that book, roaring 20s, well. And this was the thing, you know, it was in many ways, very similar to our own era, in that people were just letting it all hang out. They've been through a war. By the way, there'd been a big pandemic, much like our pandemic. They had the great flu of 1918 and like 1000s of people died. And I think the general mood was, we're just gonna party till we drop, because who knows, you could drop anyway, so you might as well drop while you're partying, you know, well, and that's one of the many layers, is this dichotomy between, I mean, just like you said, how we have it now, the strict, kind of religious right of it, and then the if we're going To be doing this moonshine and being in this place, we're not supposed to be at a time. We're not supposed to be here anyways, like, let's really let it loose, you know exactly. And so you had, and there was also pretty not in, not in agate where I write this. It was not a legal separation of the races, but by custom. Basically, black people stayed in one part of town. They shopped only in certain stores. They did only certain things. White people stayed over here. They went to their places. But in places like the wham bam club, it was all bets are off, because it was all completely illegal anyway, and people mixed and mingled with in this case, fatal results. But I'm not going to get to we don't want to spoil it. And these are some of the undercurrents that you know, anyone who's sensitive enough or even just paying any sort of attention knows that we have these undercurrents in our current society, and you do such a great job of, yes, the way that they're marinated in as like an underpinning of what's happening in the book. It really beautifully weaves into its proverbial tapestry. It confronts systemic racism, police corruption, gendered violence in a way that feels somehow both timely and timeless. So I don't know how you're doing that. Is there a particular news event, or something that struck you in a personal story, or a moment in history that became almost like the spark to ignite you into writing this book? That's a great question. I've always been interested in history, and African American history in particular, and my family in this period in the 1920s when I had done some research on my family, I discovered that both my father's people and my Mother's people had lived in Evansville, Indiana at this exact same time. They didn't know each other then, but they were there, and Evansville had a lot of the same crazy corruption and wildness that I write about. And so I've often thought, I wonder what they thought. I wonder how they dealt with it. I wonder, you know, you try to imagine, like your grandparents, as people in their 20s, what would it have been like to have moved my grandma? Mother moved there from, like, Alabama. What would that have been like, you know, to hit that was it, you know. So I've always been really curious about about that time period. And, yeah, it's just curiosity. I guess, not only are you incredible, but you have this really incredible history of family people that are connected with you are any of the musicians in your lineage, part of that two family line that was in that area around that time? Yes, they my grandfather's people. They actually were not so much in Evansville. They were a little bit to the I think it's the East they were, but they were in southern Indiana. And yes, I have one, I guess he's a great uncle who actually was pretty famous jazz musician who played with Count Basie. If you know who that is, he's like a horse, famous band leader. Anyone doesn't they need to look up Count Basie. Exactly. It's the bare minimum you need to know. So my uncle, Ernie Wilkins actually did the arrangements for Count Basie and played saxophone with him for many years. So yeah, all of those kind of things, I've always felt a deep connection, both just because I'm a musician, but also because it's an ancestral connection as well. So cool. Did you feel like when you were writing and kind of exploring and expanding the characters that you were almost blending or tuning in for the souls of the loved ones in your line and around that time period, I definitely felt supported and you know, as a medium, you know how that is, you're starting to write, and they're talking to you and and they definitely let me know they wanted certain things. And on the other hand, they let me know they did not want certain things, so yeah, in terms of how I was going to portray the characters, and that there should always be compassion for all the characters, even the worst ones, I noticed that you showed layers to even the most challenging. That's right, that's that was very important to them and but I do want to say to your listeners, we've been saying all this heavy stuff about the book. I feel like it's exciting. It is exciting, yeah, but I also want to let them know that the book is actually really light hearted, and it's a murder mystery. It's not a there's no like, really blood and gore. Obviously, people get killed, but they're killed. Things happen outside of our awareness as the reader, we just know that this has happened, but we don't have a lot of the thank yous and cues about there's no no worries on that front body parts and you know, and it's not, it's not that kind of book. It's and there is at the heart of it, a puzzle to be solved, and you the reader, have the opportunity to, like any good mystery, follow along and find the trail of clues that I left and see if you figure out who did it. You know, well, that is part of the fun, as we're kind of bouncing from, you know, I always feel like we're, more or less, for the most part, tagging along with Nola everywhere she goes through the story. And she's bouncing from her, you know, the places she's visiting and the friends she knows there, and the conversations. And then there's the, you know, undercurrents of things happening in the background, and the, I feel like, yeah, like you said, with any good murder mystery, it's you're looking at this person, and you're wondering if, oh, wait, are we supposed to be looking over here? Is this too obvious that? Yeah, so whales are turning for sure, which is a lot of fun. Well, that's what I am glad to hear, that joy, because that is definitely what I want. And yes, it has history, and yes, it has drama, and it has all these other things, but at the heart of it, hopefully it's a fun and entertaining story that will leave people smiling at the end. Okay, well, you and I both. Spent a good amount of our time in Boston. You're still there for me, I feel like those components I was talking about, the way it is in the book, there's there's the story itself, right, this mystery we're uncovering, and all the components and all the players. And I really feel like it reminds me of when I see a movie about Boston or that takes place in Boston, that they get it just right, the clothing is just right, and the accents are just right. And the because it's all happening all around and you don't have to necessarily make it center stage, but you just notice it as part of the way things are moving in the background, the way this person looks this way and not that way, or can go here and not there. And so I feel like it the all of those extra components that layering really grounds us into, like a real scene is how it feels. It doesn't feel like a made up place. It feels like good a place that we've all heard about in stories or movies or history or even watching, you know, a lot of the documentaries that have come up over the years, and so I feel like we're just getting to somehow enter through a little doorway into this window of a world. Well, that was my hope in writing it. So thank you very much. That really makes me happy, because I think if you talk to any author, this is what we want is that it's a fictional world, but it needs to feel real within the boundaries that we create, so that you the reader, can kind of really go in and experience things You know. So great. That's really good, well, in a time period too, that we have some references for, but the way it rounds out. And then I think that the psychic and seance component is just, it really is such a cool way of moving the story forward and allowing details to be revealed. And so that part of it is, I think, really, really juicy. Well, thank you so much. I really am so happy you enjoyed it. I really did. I have some other questions that are more like for those that are budding writers, because I feel like I know in our audience, we have a lot of I feel like so many sensitives have some sort of book bubbling inside of us for some period of time, whether we ever decide to address it or not. That's true. Yeah. So what do you feel like? I mean, you have such a rich history with all of your undertakings that we went through in your bio. And then there's even more than that, is the truth. How did you decide? Like, okay, it's time to bring these stories to the world that are have clearly been inside of you, even in the earlier books. Oh, wow. Yeah. Great question. Joy. I first, when I was first writing, I wrote as a little kid, and then I went into music. And as you know, when you go into something like music or athletics or whatever it is like that you go so deeply that you basically don't have time to do anything else. So for a long time, I only just did music, and so I was teaching at Berkeley, and Berkeley produces textbooks that they sell, and they asked me if I would write a Book to teach singers how to prepare for playing in a in a band, right? So I thought, well, oh, okay, I can do that. So I wrote the book. But what I found was it was far more fun writing the little hypothetical anecdotes and the little stories than it was actually writing the exercises and the musical piece. And I thought, oh, maybe this is something I'd like to do. So that was, like the first sort of it gave me a permission to say, oh, okay, maybe you can write stuff. And then I had a really burning story inside that I wanted to tell about my family, and this was about my grandfather, who was the very first African American to serve in the Labor Department as an Assistant Secretary of Labor, and this was way back in 1954 under President Eisenhower, and his experience in the government was brief. It was in. Tense, and it didn't necessarily just end in a bed of roses. And I had always wondered about what that would have been like for him at the time, he was one of maybe two or three black people in the entire upper levels of the federal government, which is pretty weird. You know, told you guys, Carolyn has all kinds of cool people that are the tops of the tops her family. This is what I was talking about. I know some of these stories so, but So you wrote that story of him, and did the research and and all of that. Exactly I did that. And then that emboldened me to write another book, which I wrote about the women in my family who were all musicians. And I wanted to go incredible to the men, yeah, well, and I wanted to tell a woman's story. So that made me go and do more research and data. And after I finished those two books, I was sick and tired of writing about myself. I didn't want to write another word about me. I wanted to, yeah, I wanted to make stuff up. So I'd always enjoyed murder mysteries, and so this is how I got into writing murder mysteries. And as you mentioned, I have written this is my fourth murder mystery. But this one by far, is my best book ever. I have to say I'm really happy with it. I have a great publisher who's really helped me. I had a great editor who helped me go over it and stuff. And so back to your question of, How did I first get the idea? I think it was more I'd always had these stories within me, but I did not think that I had the ability to actually be a writer. And it was only bit by bit as I started to actually write things that I realized, hey, you can do this. Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, we don't know until we at least give it a go. And I love that, you know, maybe you did start through a work Avenue, which I think a lot of us will be more willing to undertake something if our career is like, will you write this? But, yeah, most of us have a hobby or a passion, or, you know, some people, it's more on the mythical, mystical side. For you, it's murder mysteries. So I think it's a great doorway in for anyone who's like, oh, I might want to write, and you've done all these short stories too. So someone could just start even with a short story, right? I would actually recommend that, if there are people out there who like to write, first of all, I encourage you to not feel like, Oh, this is for only certain people, or you need to have some kind of degree in writing before you can no just write. Everybody has a story, and the deeper you get into your own uniqueness, the more interesting your story will be. There's a lot of technique to writing, which takes time and practice, just like anything else, but the best way to get started is just do it. You don't have to wait for someone to give you permission to do it, or take a workshop before you can do it, I would say, just sit down, maybe have a journal. I don't know if you're familiar with there's a lovely book. It's many years old by now, but still very good, called the artists way by Julia. Somebody gave me that book as a gift. It's a great book. It's a super popular book, but what she does is just kind of give you encouragement to move forward on your journey, if you have sort of that inner creator in you that's kind of hiding in there. And one of her suggestions is that you keep a journal and that you make yourself every day write three pages. Just write and do not go back and read it and edit it and just sit down, close your eyes all. Almost like automatic writing and just write, because what you're doing is you're priming the pump, and pretty soon those three pages will start to write themselves even, Oh, that's great. So to your process, I guess one of the things I was wondering is when you write as a writer, because I think everybody does it maybe a little bit their own way. Do you imagine kind of looking through the eyes of the main character? Do you take more of that overarching perspective, sometimes called as the god perspective, or the I keep thinking of The Truman Show Movie, yeah? Like, yeah, overarching perspective. Do you swap back and forth? How do you like to do it? My books have all been written in the first person, so that's just been what I've done. Maybe the next book, well, I can't I these next psychics and soul food. There are going to be three books in this series, and by contract, they all have to be with the same character set. And okay, that was one of my questions. So that's so we're going to hear more about Nola and her adventures. More about Nola. More about agate, Illinois. More about her aunt, the hoodoo woman more to the wham bam club, the wham bam club? Yes. So maybe after that, I may try writing in a more omniscient narrator kind of point of view, but I found the first person to be for me the quickest and the easiest, because it'd be like me telling you a story. I would be, well, I did this, and then I did this, and, oh, you wouldn't believe what happened to me. This happened. Then you're just writing that down. Do you have a sense of Do you do any sort of like character development, where you have a sense of the characters and flush them out a little before your writing? Or do you kind of know who the characters are when you're sitting down to do the overall story? Yes, I do. I actually spent quite a bit of time with these characters thinking about, you know, who they were, I write up a little bit, almost like a little bio on that, especially the major characters, yeah, who they are, where they come from, why they would act the way they do, their little quirks and ticks, you know, and especially if you're writing a series, you want the characters to have enough meat on their bones that people aren't completely sick of them after the first book. They need to be interesting, and I believe they also need to have room to grow. They need to evolve. You know? Yeah, well, there's a continuity. I think that needs to be there. I always think of it, I think because some of my backgrounds in acting, so I think of it from like a script reading perspective. And there's some techniques in acting when you're going to read for a character, where you even if it's not there technically, but I'm making up a backstory back in the day, or thinking, you know, how would they react to this? Or what's their personal history? And it feels like the characters have all of that, even though, of course, there's not time in one book to understand all of their background. We get enough of it and enough in the particularly, I mean, I think with a lot of them, but I like Nola quite a bit, so it's like you can you get other flavors of her, just in her response to something or non response to something. Do you know what I mean? Those characters feel really fleshed out to me. Oh, that's great. That was a big hope. Because for me, when I read a mystery or I watch a movie or something, if I can't really connect to the characters, if they don't feel real to me. Sometimes there are some genres in which the characters are almost like paper cutouts that just do things. You know, he runs to the car and drives it, and then he's chased by 30 cars, and then they blow up something and but you never really have a sense that this is really a person with moods and different feelings and things. So for me, I prefer a more character driven story. And as a writer, I did spend a lot of time making sure that my characters felt authentic to me. There's a depth to them. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Sometimes that feels really surfacey. I don't know. I don't know how you magically managed to. Accomplish it in something that's not 1000 pages to really like, get in there and make them feel fully developed, but they they certainly do. Is there something that really surprised you most as you started to uncover the characters? Did any of them really take on a life of their own in a way that you maybe didn't expect as you're adding the complexities or reveal something unexpected as you wrote them. Yes, yes, and I don't want to spoil anything. Yes, don't. No spoilers, guys. But I think particularly some of the minor characters, the woman who has the spiritualist runs the seance there, she turns out to be kind of an interesting person, and not quite what you might think at first. Will we see more of her as well, I don't know. To be determined, yeah, determined to be they'll definitely be more psychic stuff that I can promise. But I think the next book goes in a little bit of a different direction. Okay, so I don't want to say too much. It's, it's a little different, the same, but different. And this is, of course, for all of you wanting to write people out there, this is also a big challenge, because when you come with the next book in the series, it can't just be like the first book. It's got to be different. And even though the characters are the same, they can't do the same things just doing they have to evolve. They have to grow. They have to and that is challenging for the writer, because at the same time, if you change them too much, people are going to be Wait a minute, you said, Nola always ate chocolate ice cream after and now you have her eating like, strawberry, yeah, you know. So it's a, it's a, it's a tight rope that you have to walk. We the audience do sometimes get attached to our characters being a certain way. You know, I'm almost feeling like, I'm pretty excited. I'm almost feeling like, maybe we'll get some version of, like, a murder mystery, White Lotus situation, where we're going to different different places and experiences with our girl, really? I mean, only 21 she got plenty of time to she's still young. Yeah, did something in you? Did you get the sense when you were writing this one that like, Okay, this is going to be a series. Is that something that you just felt inside, or was that more on the decision end, I wanted to make it a series. First of all, if you're a writer and you're trying to sell something, a series is a little bit more saleable, because the publisher hopefully, their hope is that after they release this one, people will want more Nola, and then they're going to want, you know, the next book and the next book and the next book. So it's a win win for everyone that said, you know, some people just write one book and that's it, and they sell it, and that's it. And then they go back and they create a completely different book, and they and they do, you know, but I wanted this to be a group of three, and then we'll see how it goes. So there will be three psychics and Soul Food mysteries with the same characters, or at least the same major characters. Yeah, so yeah, when I feel like it's a perfect story to either the way I think of it is like either for like a Sunday reading, when you just want to have a little lazy morning in bed with a cup of tea, or if you're darting to appointments, and, you know, we all get stuck in waiting rooms or lines, or whether you have a digital or a tangible copy to just kind of like, okay, it's the kind of story that I felt like I could slip in and out of and know where I was and really get back in there pretty easily, which for me, I really like A lot. Yeah, I tried to make it like that and also that each chapter both wraps up a little bit, but also hooks you into the next chapter so they should follow. And that goes back to I. Referred before to the technique of writing. There is a fair amount of technique to really making a story flow, and that's one of the challenges, to be able to just let there be as few impediments between the reader and the story as possible. That's, that's my view, anyway, is that something that you work out more in the editing on the back end, because I've heard writers say you just gotta write, write it and don't like you said earlier, don't edit it as you're doing it. Write it all and then pass it over to a great editor and let them try to help design some of the breaks and omit some of the and then you go back and do a second round yourself. Is that sort of how it works for you? Well, it at first, in order to sell the book, you need to have be your own very rigorous editor. And I'm blessed to have a husband who is also a really good writer, and he's also extremely particular, so he went through it a couple times. And then I have other writer friends who I've exchanged books with they've read mine and I've read so I sent it out to like a small group of beta readers who made suggestions, and then I went back and edited, and then I sent it to my agent, and She went through it and edited, and then I sent it to the publisher. He edited, sent it back to me. I edited, then I sent it to a further, different level reader who did another edit. And then finally, they do a copy edit where they go through and just look for grammatical mistakes or gross inaccuracies. They checked all my, you know, that was the first thing she said, Is this agate a real place. I can't find it on the map. You know, so funny. Yeah, I think there's a lot of that part of it that people maybe don't realize when they're entering in. It really is a labor of love to create this work into the world. It's not, you know, like both things creative. It's not a few hours long. It's it took me five years, five years, and part of that was that I wrote it and then I was having trouble selling it, which is another whole story, and it was a long slog to find the right agent who could appreciate the book and behind the book, and then she was able to get it in front of the publisher that I currently have. Yeah, the right people, but it's more than a notion. And I will say, Sure, if you like to write. Writing is sorry. I was just squeaking around. Oh, no worries. I was afraid it was me. Writing is not for the faint of heart, and it is also not for the impatient. If you're an impatient person that needs to see results right away. Maybe you write, but you don't write to be published. Yeah, start there, because it's a long, long thing, and that's why to get back to your point. If you feel like you want to write fiction, think about writing short stories. It's a lot easier to get a short story published. You mostly don't need an agent to submit your story to magazines, and there are a lot of online magazines or anthologies that have different themes, and they'll put out call for submissions, and you can offer your story there, and that's a great way to share your work. Yeah, I think it's different process for everyone, and sometimes it is those breadcrumbs as we move forward and see if something's a good fit for us. I do have just a couple more questions about the book and the process. You we were amazing. You're so funny. Yeah, I'm just excited about, I think it was, I think it was phenomenal. I'm really excited for the next one, of course. And I knew I was like, I wonder if Carolyn could tell. Us anything about the next slide, but I feel like you already did the spirit speed round. So we had time for a little bit extra. I had a couple of just kind of fun questions. One of them, you sort of answered already. It was when you write, do you look or do you listen to music as you're working and as you're writing, and if so, I was wondering if there's a piece of music you don't piece of music that you really relate to nola's character. Yeah, I wrote songs for that purpose, but I, because I'm also a musician, I can't listen to music and do something else interesting, yeah, because it's like, I my mind gets involved with the music. I start. Oh, well, I wonder why he used the trumpet there instead of the saxophone. Why did he go to that chord change instead of here? Or I just, I can't just have the music just be like background. So when I write, I write, and then when I do music, I I do music. So they're like, kind of separate, um, but since part of the book, there are literal song lyrics in the book, I thought it would be fun, because they're at the wham bam club, right? Yeah. What are they listening to? Well, naturally, they're listening to blues. Some of those lyrics are pretty gut bucket, pretty racy. Yeah, it's very racy fun, unexpected fun. And so when I wrote those lyrics, I did, in my mind, hear the music that would go under them. And so that's why I did end up recording three songs that are related to the book that you can download for free. I'm going to give you the link. I'm pretty good about that, yeah, put it in the show notes with your website. I couldn't imagine you doing it any other way, even when I was reading the lyrics are hearing them in the story. I was like, oh, there's definitely, you definitely were hearing a song to this. And I'm sure even ambiently, as you're going through the the experience and rereading it, I'm sure there's some version of soundtrack or other things that are happening. This is a strange question, maybe, but I hope it's a fun one. If you could sit down at the wham bam club for one night only, spiritually or otherwise, who would you want at the piano and who would you want to be sitting next to you? Oh, my goodness. Well, I'll tell you what. There are some great characters. I'm not going to go into them. There are several gangsters, including a kind of handsome, sexy one. There are a couple of very corrupt politicians. They might be interesting. They probably could take you out for a good time. But on the piano, I want to say, I want to be on the piano. I want to play. And the band that they have at the WAM BAM Club is a good band. Whatever else they've got going on, the music is good. And I think would be super fun to be, to be part of that for like one night. Well, and I think historically, we know through all the documentaries that most jazz artists of the time were incredible artists and also had complicated other stuff. Well, you put it very kindly. Yes, they were sometimes there was a reason why musicians were considered to be kind of along with actors and any of those kind of show folk. They were pretty much the bottom of the barrel. They were not this the hoity toides of society by any means. Yeah, well, and it's a little scandalous to even be there, so kind of to your earlier point, yeah, it is this strange mix of unusual bedfellows. Can we say that's what makes it fun? Yeah, wouldn't be seen together, maybe on Main Street. But are none of them can talk about who's there and who's not there, because they're not supposed to be there. Nobody's supposed to be there. Whole place was completely illegal, yet operating in broad view of the law and all that so well. And it sets it perfectly for us to have Nola as the prime investigator here. Because, you know, sometimes when things happen in. And places like this, maybe the main investigators are investigating too hard and got to take on the case ourselves. There you go. Well, Joy, I think you have captured the spirit of it for sure. Okay, just one more question for you. What is the what is the kind of wind of inspiration that's moving you towards this next novel? Is there a breezy vibe that you're feeling as you move into it? Is there more of like a mysterious air that we can be expecting to feel around the corner? Do you have any thoughts on the on that? Oh, what a great question. They're so fun. The truth is, the second book has already been written, because that's the way the book business works. Who knew for you, though five years that's great. You got a lot done in there. Yeah, the second book will come out this time next year, so I will say that it has the same characters, but part of what really interested me was some real life I almost want to describe them as cult figures. There's a little bit of that going on in the book cult figures of the 1920s Yeah. So I'm not going to say too much, but perfect Nola is, as usual, in the thick of things and up to her ears in trouble, so accidentally getting herself nominated for for things. Okay, I have one final question, sure, nola's investigation requires her to trust her inner voice despite lots of external doubt, and sometimes I think many of us can struggle with that. What do you hope readers take away about things like self trust, especially in the face of everything happening in that story? And now, great question. I did think about this, and I did want her to be, to some degree, even though she's a fictional character, I do want her to be kind of an inspiration, of speaking up for herself, being a little bit feisty, not Falling for the Okey doke, or just because some male authority figure tells her something that she has to do it. And I would hope that readers would take away from that a little feeling of feeling empowered and a little feeling inspired, and like, yeah, yeah. Women, even back then, even under oppressive conditions, people can do amazing things. And that's maybe that's a little bit of a message. I love it. Well. Thank you for sharing this work with us and being willing to talk to us all about it. Obviously, people can find everything@carolynwilkens.com which I'll of course link in the show notes. Where else can we get this book? Is that the best way is that the only way this book, thanks to my wonderful publisher, this book is available, as they say, wherever books are sold. You can go to your local bookstore and request that they order it if they don't have it. You can get it at Amazon. You can get it at Barnes and Noble, you can get it all kinds of those places. And I will mention also, there's an e book available, and there's an audio book, so joy if it wasn't that you had gotten a pre order copy of the book. You could actually have had a real human read you the book. I would much prefer. Are you reading the book? No, it's an actress, interesting. Maybe I'm gonna re listen to it. Listen well. This is the type of book I would re listen to. I highly recommend, even if someone just likes reading, or for travel or for a fun gift, it's It's everything you want it to be. It's so delicious. And I really hope that you will come back and tell us about the next one before you are the best. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it, and thanks for. Shining your light and everyone it is totally available right now. Murder at the wham bam club by Miss Carolyn Marie Wilkins, thanks for shining your light. Thank you. Well, what did you think of that conversation with amazing author, musician, medium, artist and friend Carolyn Wilkins, murder at the wham bam club is such a fun, exciting book. I highly recommend it, like I was saying, whether you are in a waiting room or having some kind of travel or even just want to have a little relaxing time on a Sunday morning, it is the perfect book for that. Murder at the wham bam club is available now. Like Carolyn said, wherever you get your books, and you can also go to carolynwilkens.com which I'll, of course, link in the show notes. I will also link those additional songs that she was telling us about, that she created as she was writing the book, because there are some songs actually in the book, so we can hear the music itself. And Carolyn is quite modest, but she's an incredibly acclaimed musician artist, among many other accolades. So she's such a special person, and I'm really grateful for her sharing her time with us yet again on the podcast. I'll also link that other episode that she did, which was the Akashic Records trance piano healing episode. So you actually receive a healing in that episode with her piano music that she's channeling. So that was a really cool experience as well. And in that episode, we talk all about Carolyn's mediumship, how she became a medium, her history, and all of that part of her story as well, so you can get to know her even more. And for me, that just makes anything I'm reading more delicious to get to know the author. So she said, there is now an audio book, plus the hard copy, plus the digital version, all available. Now you can find them either@carolynwilkins.com or wherever books are sold. And again, I will link everything in the show notes. I'm so grateful for you being here with me today. Do you feel like you have a story inside of you that you want to write? Do you just enjoy reading other people's works? Are you starting to get a stirring about maybe what's next for you, or what your soul's calling you to undertake? Stick around, because I have so much more coming up in the fall, exercises and opportunities and workshops and some really fun ways for you to start exploring some gifts of your own. So as always, thanks for being here with me today. Big hugs. Lots of love from inside spirit speakeasy. You.