Author Katharine Beutner takes a trip down memory lane with Laura to discuss their shared experience as editors of their high school literary magazine (!) before turning to a discussion of craft and crime. Beutner discusses the inspiration for her new novel, KILLINGLY; the art of historical fiction; writing novels vs. poetry; research; revision; women’s colleges in the late 1800s; evolving attitudes surrounding queerness at the turn of the twentieth century; the ethics of fictionalizing an actual missing-person case; cat fanciers of yore; and more.

Killingly, a New England Gothic novel surrounding the aftermath of a student’s disappearance from Mt. Holyoke College in 1897, was published by Soho Press in June 2023. Beutner is also the author of Alcestis, a queer retelling of the Greek myth, originally published in 2010 and re-released by Soho Press in September 2023. This interview was conducted in May 2023.

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Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.