Report from a Southernmost NPR Correspondent

LUCY BURDETTE: Today I'm excited to introduce the Southernmost NPR reporter, Nan Klingener. (You can see her below on her official WLRN bike!) She interviewed me for my seventh Key West book, Fatal Reservations, and I thought it would be fun to return the favor so you could hear more about her life as a reporter. Welcome Nan! 

I recall reading a few years ago that you went to get training for future NPR reporters. Can you tell us how that came about? And what kinds of things you learned?

NANCY KLINGENER: I went to the Transom Story Workshop in Woods Hole, Mass. It’s not specifically for NPR reporters but rather a workshop about audio storytelling in all its forms. That includes public radio reporting but also podcasts — which are exploding right now — and even sound art. I was already freelancing for WLRN and talking to them about opening a bureau in the Keys. But I had no radio training or experience and the station is 150 miles away. My editor at WLRN suggested I look at the Transom website, because it has a lot of resources. I saw the information about the workshop and, in a reckless moment, applied. It meant I left my home and life in Key West for two months, which was hard. But it also meant, essentially, attending grad school for radio in an intensive two-month period. I learned a lot and it was actually really useful to leave my life and my routine and immerse myself in a different place and mindset.

LUCY: Your range for stories is the length of the Keys. How do you choose what to focus on? What's a typical day like?

Photo by Amy Lynch

NAN KLINGENER: I do cover the entire Keys — I like to joke that my commute is either a couple blocks or 200 miles. There’s not really any such thing as a typical day, except that they all start with checking what’s on email, Facebook and the local papers. I usually file a couple of what we call dailies each week — those are the stories you hear in newscasts that are a minute or so long. And I’ve always got a feature going — those are the longer stories, of about four minutes or so. Sometimes the news dictates what I’m doing but we always try to be more enterprising, which means not just reporting what the local governments are doing in a meeting but going out and finding stories.

LUCY: Tell us about one or two of your favorites.

Photo by Mark Hedden

NAN: I am fond of my story about a guy who breeds and races pigeons. He also rescues a lot of pigeons that are racing pigeons from Cuba that have wound up here. That was my first and so far only non-narrated story, which means it’s all his voice. It’s an interesting challenge to put that together within the time constraints and make it a coherent narrative. And it’s one of those stories that is really Keys-specific.

Another of my favorites was a two-parter about the Cuban history and influence in Key West. I’ve always been into the history of this area and that’s definitely reflected in my stories. Those of us who live here can see, hear and taste the Cuban influence but a lot of people in South Florida probably don’t realize that in the 19th century, Key West was the equivalent of Miami for the Cuban diaspora. And that was before Miami existed.

LUCY: Now, Key West. How did you decide to move to the island? What do love about island life, and what, not so much? How have things changed over the past 20 + years?

NAN: I came to Key West in 1991 as a reporter for the Miami Herald. Back then, the Herald had a Keys section that ran six days a week and a bureau with two reporters and a part-time clerk. It was supposed to be a job that you were in for maybe a year or two and then moved on — it was famous for producing reporters that went on to great acclaim. But I just fell in love with living in a place where you could pick up the phone or walk into someone’s office. I felt much more at home here than on the mainland, maybe because I’m from New England and the clapboard houses and 19th century layout felt right to me. I had been saving up for grad school but about a year after I got here, I decided that the best thing I could hope for after grad school was a good job at a good newspaper in a good place — and I had all those. So I took the money I’d been saving and made the down payment on a sweet little condo in Old Town. That was the best financial decision of my life.

I love Key West because it’s a small town that’s never boring. You can walk or ride your bike most places and its long tradition of non-judgmentalism means that you can really feel free to be who you are. (See photo from Fantasy Fest 1993. Photo by Jennifer Podis--theme that year was "Lost in the Sixties,", hence Nan's tie-dye look as she interviews Pumpkin Man.) 

I think that’s especially true for those of us who came from elsewhere. I love that even in this small town, there are so many overlapping circles and you can always meet someone or see something surprising. And I love the rest of the Keys, even though I don’t know them anywhere near as well. Each island has its own character and its own idiosyncrasies.

Not so much? It’s hard to live in a place that’s an increasingly expensive resort and winter retreat. Even though I’m ridiculously fortunate in that I met my husband here and we got a foothold in the real estate market, it’s hard to see your friends and colleagues struggling to make it here, or leaving because it’s just not worth it. And it’s hard to watch your neighborhood change from being a real neighborhood, with people who live here year round, to just being a kind of facsimile of a neighborhood.

 At the same time as it’s been getting more expensive, we’ve also gained access to a lot of things that make life better. Some of that is just the Internet and other technology — we didn’t have public radio at all, much less a bureau, when I moved here in 1991. Back then, we only had a six-screen multiplex – we used to go on these overnight missions to Miami and watch six movies in two days. Now we have an indie movie theater as well as whatever you want to stream. And the cultural scene in general is so active as to be overwhelming during season, but that also means there’s plenty to choose from and it might be someone local doing something interesting, or it might mean an artist from elsewhere bringing their work here.

 I’m not crazy about the heat and stifling humidity all summer, either, but I’ve made my peace with it.

LUCY: Thanks for visiting Nan! Reds, questions and comments?

What I was #Writing that You Can Read Next Week! @LucyBurdette #giveaway

LUCY BURDETTE: I can't really concentrate on anything except for the fact that KILLER TAKEOUT will be out next Tuesday. So I'm sharing a few snippets from that book, the 7th Key West mystery. (The quotes are all in Hayley Snow's voice, of course.)

Lucy with the cast of Wizard of Oz, FF style

Me? I'd rather eat canned sardines from China than march down Key West’s Duval Street wearing not much more than body paint. But 100,000 out-of-town revelers didn’t agree. They were arriving on the island this week to do just that—or watch it happen—during Fantasy Fest, the celebration taking place during the ten days leading up to Halloween, including a slew of adult-themed costume parties culminating in a massive and rowdy parade.

Food is a major deal in my family—life-sustaining, of course. But it also provides clues to the cook’s inner life, like a psychologist’s inkblot test. According to my mother, and her mother before her, the menu that the hostess selects always, always sends a message to the guests.

 I’d added the mango dog to our order at the last minute, thinking it would be more Sam's speed than mine. But the combination of the fragrant grilled all beef hot dog, wrapped in crispy bacon and slathered with slices of bright yellow mango, red onion, and jalapeno pepper, and topped with some kind of pink sauce looked irresistible. (Mango hot dog recipe.)

 

I retrieved my bike and peddled over to the Atlantic side of the island, and then up the bike path toward Fort East Martello, next to the Key West airport. As I rode, more zombies on bikes filled in the empty spaces ahead and behind me. There were Santa zombies and retiree zombies and wicked witch zombies, and zombies of uncertain lineage heavy on dripping blood.

I DID ask his permission

Robert, a life-sized stuffed doll with a creepy face who was dressed in a sailor suit, had been enclosed in a big glass case. On the wall, letters were displayed from visitors who had not taken the proper precautions of asking his permission before taking his photo. Or worse still, made fun of his evil powers. He was famous for cursing tourists who didn’t treat him with respect.

Bransford managed a pained smile. “None of Hayley’s friends are capable of murder—she tells me that every time we have an incident.”

“Not funny,” I said, and took the glass of white wine from Sam’s steady hands, my own fingers shaking.

Shortly after I’d moved down, Key West seeped into my system like a sweet poison, and now I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. And I probably bragged about how lucky I was to be on this island more than I should.

The tropical depression that forecasters had worried about for the last several days was still hanging heavy east of Cuba. The longer it stalled, the more organized grew its internal rotation, said the hurricane specialist. Which spelled more concern for Florida, especially our fragile keys, tossed across the ocean like a string of antique pearls.

People were like that, full of psychological wrinkles and shadowy corners—even the ones you’d known forever harbored secrets.

KILLER TAKEOUT will be out on Tuesday, available wherever books are sold! But I'd love to give a copy away to one of our wonderful Jungle Red Readers! Leave your email with your name to be entered in the drawing.

What We're Writing Week: @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: The seventh Key West foodie mystery, Killer Takeout, will be on bookshelves soon (April 5.) Last month, that seemed a long distance away, but now the time will rush by. I have blogs to write, and proposals for new books to create, and recipes to develop, and the Key West Friends of the Library newsletter to produce. In other words, I am all over the place with what I'm writing. If I started to list it all, I fear I'd spin off into a great big ball of anxiety. 

So instead, I thought you'd enjoy a little peek into the cover story for KT. I've mentioned before that I create a Pinterest board as I work on each book. This seventh book in the Key West series takes place at Fantasy Fest, a New Orleans-style 10-day adult-themed party. As you can imagine, adult themes and cozies mysteries are not a natural mix. So I edited what I pinned to my board, so the powers that be would not freak out. No naked people in other words. I concentrated on costumes and food and pets--things that might give the cover artists a good starting point. (PS, I love my cover artists!)

Here's the first draft of what they sketched. All going in the right direction, though I wasn't sure what was up with the expanse of pavement...or the stop sign...or the blue building in the background. None of this reflected the reality of the scene (which is okay, really.) But it also distracted the eye from the fabulous display on the picnic table, including requisite cat--this time on the hunt for a lizard. My editor agreed, so back it went for another draft. I should also mention that I was writing the book as this was going on, so the artwork sometimes changed what I had imagined in a given scene. For example, I added the food truck that they had drawn in the scene...such a cool process!

Here's the second draft, minus stop sign and with reduced blacktop...and with the addition of some kind of bead shop, who knew? And notice that the truck's name has changed to Beach Eats (suggested by Celia Warren Fowler.)

Back to the drawing board for more blacktop reduction. (I'm not kidding!)

And here's the "final" draft--but purple? Oh no, I had been lobbying for orange. Because the purple seemed too close to the blue of FATAL RESERVATIONS. We certainly didn't want readers getting mixed up and thinking they already bought the new book! 

Was I wrong? I didn't think so. Was I displacing all kinds of other writer worries onto this cover? Absolutely!

Meanwhile, my editor had taken to Googling Fantesy Fest. And she'd come across photos of many naked people, albeit, painted. She called.

"Roberta, I can't quite believe what I'm finding online."

Me: "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, some of it is a little x-rated. But don't worry, I didn't write about that stuff. None of that's in the book, you'll see." 

Not much anyway. And then I begged for a chance to have orange on the cover.

She went to bat for me. Did I mention I love my editor?

You are invited to preorder KILLER TAKEOUT today!

(And PPS no, I am not going to post the naked people here either...only thinking of Hank, who is very modest. Though the truth is I do have some photos, because these painted people are not one bit shy about posing for a camera. Yeah, Hayley didn't get it either...)

What I Was #Writing @Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I told you during the last What We’re Writing week that I was working on KILLER TAKEOUT, the seventh Key West food critic mystery, coming out April 5, 2016. This book takes place during Fantasy Fest, a giant, crazy costume party running over the week leading up to Halloween. 

But on my last assigned WWW day, I fell ill with a vertigo attack and Hallie kindly filled in for me. So I’m taking today to tell you what I would have said. I’ve just turned the draft into my brand new editor, now comes the nail-biting wait for comments. (Here’s my other editor, Yoda. He says: You’re going to make this pile of notes into a book?)

Jennifer paints John's base coat

While I was doing the research for this, John and I participated in one of my favorite Key West events, the zombie bike ride. And where I go, of course, Hayley goes. We went to get our faces painted by a professional face painter—Hayley does too.
 

This is a very crazy scene—10,000 people on bikes, most of them dressed up and made up like zombies. I made the decision early in the draft that the crime should occur during the bike ride. I had no problem setting this up. The questions came later, when I was trying to figure out what kind of murderer would attempt such a thing in an enormous crowd—and how! And why? 

 

You might think it ridiculous that someone would begin writing without those answers, but I assure you that I do it every time. And interesting to me that Nathan Bransford (former literary agent, now novelist, and yes, the namesake for Hayley’s detective heartthrob) addressed this very question in his recent blog. His advice (which thank goodness I was already stumbling through) is first to identify what you’re trying to solve, and then create some structure around it. What needs to happen before you can reach that solution? Break it all down into manageable steps and it starts to feel possible.

zombies have brains too

And here's a bit from that scene in KILLER TAKEOUT:


We got onto our bikes and began to pedal. The crowd pressed in on either side. I dodged a wobbly elder zombie on a three-wheel bike to my left and three tricycles loaded with the Andrews sisters zombies on my right. A radio in one of their baskets played a tinny version of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. I snapped photos to the left and the right, and held my phone up to take a short video of the crowd following behind me. Two very drunk zombie girls in black dresses whose hems fluttered dangerously close to their bike spokes approached from either side of me ringing their warning bells. 

“Zombie on the left!” cried one.

“Zombie on the right!” said the other.

“Zombie down!” came another call from behind. 

Scary zombies!

“These people are having too much fun. They have to learn to pace themselves over the week,” I muttered to Connie. “You go on ahead, I think it’s safer to ride single file.” Not that I hadn't done my share of partying back in the day, but I'd learned my lesson. There was a good reason that one of the liquor stores in town was called The Lost Weekend.

I spurted ahead of the others, staying to the right of the pack, concentrating on not getting run into the curb.

“Zombie down!” echoed a call through the crowd.

This time, the “zombie down” was not a cry of wolf. I stopped riding and spun around to see what was wrong. A zombie was splayed out on the pavement. The two tipsy girls swerved past, barely missing the figure in the road.

“Zombie down!” the shouts grew louder and more shrill as the costumed revelers passed their call up the slow-moving bicycle cavalcade to the front of the parade, like a twisted version of telephone. 

As none of the zombies around me were stopping to help, I got off my bike and crouched beside the person on the ground. Her face was painted mostly white, with patches of black and red almost the opposite of my pattern. She was dressed in a flowing white gown that made the most of her buxom figure, streaked with the requisite blood stains and red glitter. Her headdress, which looked like a Cinderella tiara, zombie-style, had been knocked off her head and scattered a foot away. I snatched up the crown so it wouldn’t get trampled and shouted over the noise around us.

“Are you all right?” I asked. “Can you get up, or should I call for help?”

She answered with a low groan. My gaze flicked over her body, her arms splayed out, her legs akimbo. So much fake blood had been painted on the costume that it was hard to tell if she was really in trouble. I took her hand, which was cool, bordering on icy. Her pulse was racing.

And then I noticed a froth of red in the corner of her mouth. This problem was no fake. 

Killer Takeout will be out on April 5, 2016, but you can pre-order it now!

And thank you again to my friend Hallie for filling the hole!

What We're Writing Week @LucyBurdette

John on duty during the parade

LUCY BURDETTE: You wouldn't believe the things I do in the name of research. Last fall, we arrived in Key West earlier than usual--October--so I could observe the wildest festival of the year--Fantasy Fest. Even after the week was over, I couldn't pretend to understand the grand appeal of walking up and down Duval Street basically naked except for creative body paint. But hey, it makes for a fabulous backdrop--though sorting through what can go into a cozy mystery from this week of events was a bit challenging. 

But John and I promptly signed up to train as Fantasy Fest parade ambassadors, and I ordered tutus in several colors (the men got camo tutus, including Tonka,) and made appointments for face-painting for the Zombie bike ride.


So that's the book I'm writing now! Without further ado, here's the opening for KILLER TAKEOUT, coming to bookshelves next April:

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KILLER TAKEOUT: Chapter One

  

Resident islanders couldn’t remember a hotter Key West summer. Not only hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, they agreed, but hot enough to crisp bacon, too. So far, the advent of fall was bringing no relief. Today’s temperature registered 93° and climbing--fierce-hot for October, with the humidity dense like steam from my grandmother’s kettle. And the local news anchor promised it would get hotter as the week continued, along with the party on Duval Street.

Me? I'd rather eat canned sardines from China then march down Key West’s Duval Street wearing not much more than body paint. But 100,000 out-of-town revelers didn’t agree. They were arriving on the island this week to do just that—or watch it happen—during Fantasy Fest, the celebration taking place during the ten days leading up to Halloween, including a slew of adult-themed costume parties culminating in a massive and rowdy parade.

Worse of all, the Weather Channel was tracking the path of a tropical storm in the Eastern Caribbean. They had already begun to mutter semi-hysterical recommendations: Visitors should prepare to head up the Keys to the mainland and take refuge in a safer area. But based on the crowds I’d seen, no one was listening. These hordes weren’t leaving until the event was over. Besides, with a four-hour drive to Miami on a good traffic day, getting all those people out would be like trying to squeeze ketchup back into a bottle. Might as well party.

Since no right-minded local resident would attempt to get near a restaurant this week, I had fewer food critic duties at my workplace, the style magazine, Key Zest. I was looking forward to covering some of the tamer Fantasy Fest events for the magazine, including the Zombie bike ride, the locals’ parade, and a pet masquerade contest. And since restaurants are my beat, I’d promised my bosses an article on reliable takeout food too. If that didn’t keep me busy enough, my own mother, Janet Snow, and Sam, her fiance, were arriving for the week to visit with my dear friend Connie’s new baby, and then get themselves hitched on the beach.

In a weak moment, I’d allowed Miss Gloria, my geriatric houseboat-mate, to talk me into being trained as a Fantasy Fest parade ambassador. Our job would be to help patrol the sidewalks, which would be lined with costumed and tipsy revelers scrambling for the colored glass bead necklaces thrown off the floats.

“If we aren’t going to go to the foam party, or the Adam and Eve bash, or the Tighty Whitey party, we should at least attend the parade,” Miss Gloria said.

I closed my eyes to ward off the image of my elderly friend at any of those events.

“And if we’re working as ambassadors, we’ll be stationed inside the crowd control barricades. We’ll have the best seat in the house. Get it? Seat.” She broke into helpless giggles.

            At the time, the idea seemed palatable. Barely.

Meanwhile, FATAL RESERVATIONS will be here July 7, but I'd be so thrilled if you'd order it now!