It's A Book Thing Presents: An Interview with Helen Chapman/Anne Arrandale, author of The Left Hand of Dog and Medically Uncertain

Author’s Bio: Much of Helen Chapman (Anne Arrandale)’s fiction was written at work, and began 'Comes now the Plaintiff, by and through counsel...' When not at work, her writing may be children's stories, young adult novels, or wicked gruesome police procedurals. Some stories are true, with names changed to protect the stupid. 

Several of her short stories and essays are in assorted print and online periodicals. She had a column in I Love Cats magazine, and has had work in The Muscadine Lines literary journal, An Honest Lie: volume 3 anthology, and several of her stories have appeared in Catnip Chronicles, Civil Rights Chronicle, and Horizons. Every so often, one of her stories shows up at RomanticShorts.com  

She is also the Official Crazy Cat Lady [her byline in I Love Cats is proof].  You can connect with her at https://www.facebook.com/Helen-Chapman-is-Anne-Arrandale-and-They-Write-Books-102822944839280

Deliah Lawrence: What inspired you to write your book?

Helen Chapman: The cat books come about organically. Cats do stuff, I write it down. I was lucky that magazines paid me for my efforts. 

The fiction, particularly the historic fiction, is based in fact. Medically Uncertain was based in part on a gruesome divorce case on which I worked. My current unpublished work is a series, set in Baltimore City in the beginning in 1907, and covers what was euphemistically referred to as "white slavery", and the passage of the Mann Act. I anticipate the series will culminate at the close of the Spanish Flu pandemic (unless the characters tell me they have more to say). 

DL: How do you handle writer’s block?

HC: Not well, apparently. While #45 was in the White House, I could hardly string two sentences together. I had a whole ream of printed out partial stories finished, but nothing really gelled. Suddenly, January 2021, and the floodgates seemed to open. I was able to finish multiple manuscripts, edit others, and outline future stories. 

Mostly, if I am stuck, I'll research. Writing historicals means there's always fun things you can find. For me, it's Stereopticon slides. I find them at thrift stores and sometimes eBay.  

DL: What is your writing process?

HC: I generally have multiple documents open at the same time. One I'm actively writing at the moment, one being edited, and one I'm sketching out (I do not outline. I'm a pantser. But I start with a title, and a basis for the title. Example: in my current series, a future book will be I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier. When the US becomes involved in WWI, a teenager joins the "Yeomanettes", the women's naval auxiliary who assumed communication duties. While working as a telegrapher, she uncovers a German plot undermine the war effort by encouraging draft dodging, and infecting army mules with Anthrax as they are loaded on ships in the Port of Baltimore. The rest of the story will work itself out, once the characters tell me what's going to happen. 

Perhaps because I'm a child of the 60s/70s, I need background noise to write. I frequently put on an opera on YouTube on the TV, and listen to Mozart or Rossini. Although I do admit that if Samuel Ramey is in it, I tend to watch more than write.  

DL: What do you think makes a good story?

HC: Anything that makes me laugh, or say "oh no they didn't." Sometimes both at once. 

DL: What were some of the challenges when writing your books?

HC: Sometimes, when a story is fact based, it becomes difficult to disguise the real actions so a reader won't say "Wow, that sounds like my uncle Bob". Of course, if someone wanted to sue me, they wouldn't get anything.

DL: Is there any particular author or book that influenced you in any way either growing up or as an adult?

HC: I read everything as a kid. But I loved the Arabian Nights stories, in the version with the Maxfield Parrish illustrations. 

DL: What was the best writing advice you’ve ever been given?

HC: If you have a need to write, just do it. Commit it to paper. Writing is like gas. If you don't get it out, you'll explode. It doesn't have to be perfect, or good grammar. You can fix that later. But get something written. Then put it away for a while. Weeks. Take it out of the drawer and read it anew. If you can say, "Damn, that's good," you're on to something. 

DL: If you were hosting a dinner party which three authors would be your dream guests and why? 

HC: Dorothy Parker, Will Cuppy, Alexander Woollcott: All three brilliant, with cutting wit, and they weren't afraid to let someone know what they thought. 

DL: What do you like to do when you're not writing?  

HC: Crochet. Cook. Annoy my kids by asking questions about the grandkids and great grands. 

DL: Would you like to share an excerpt of something you are currently working on?

HC: Sure, here’s an excerpt from Somewhere in France is the Lily, an unpublished part of the Monument City Mysteries: 

September 25, 1914

Lily Barnett stood on the deck of the troop ship Caronia, surrounded by British soldiers and their officers. She wore the blue-grey uniform suit and red-lined cape of the British Territorial Force Nursing Service.  The men around here stood a respectful distance away. She looked at the French coast, unconsciously scanning the nearby water for a German mine. One had sunk the Caronia’s sister ship a few months ago. Lily didn’t expect problems, but she wasn’t willing to take chances, either. 

Two months ago, she was happily working at the Baltimore City Health Department as a visiting nurse, delivering babies as necessary and making sure certain homes where communicable diseases were present were quarantined. 

Contagion was something about which Nurse Barnett felt strongly. Dr. Joseph Barnett, her late father, had taken her to a home to assist him with a sick child. That visit caused Lily and her mother to contract diphtheria. Mrs. Barnett, unfortunately, succumbed to the illness less than a day after falling ill. Lily, however, lay in the throes of the disease for weeks, in and out of consciousness. The treatment, painting the throat with a solution containing arsenic and strychnine, helped her survive, for which she was grateful. 

DL: Thanks so much for being here with us today. I know my readers will enjoy getting to know you and your work.

HC: Thank you!