Why Did the Writer Do That? A Behind the Scenes Interview with Jennifer Kincheloe

After You Read (SPOILER ALERT!!! Come back after you read the book!)I'm so excited to be doing this unique interview with Jennifer Kencheloe on her new book  The Woman in the Camphor Trunk (Amazon). (Audible), the second installment of the Anna Blanc Series.

Most interviews are careful not to divulge anything before the reader actually reads the book but this interview is different. I wanted to really get behind the scenes and find out the knitty-gritty writing decisions behind this fun mystery. These are the questions I wanted answers to while reading the book and I hope some of them line up with your own. Enjoy!
Read the first Women in the Camphor Trunk InterviewRead My Book Review of The Women in the Camphor TrunkRead my first interview with Jennifer on the  The Secret Life of Anna Blanc. Read my book review of The Secret life of Anna Blanc.
How did you go about researching and describing details for things like Anna Blanc’s expensive furniture and clothing and that first Chinatown scene, which was filled with impeccable sensory details? 
 I rely heavily on photographs from the time and have collected thousands of them on Pinterest. One of my pages has over 4,000 pictures of dresses from the 1900s. I’ve got one of purses, one of furniture, one of hair. I’ve got street scenes from Los Angeles, and a board dedicated just to Chinatown. That first Chinatown scene, in the market, it’s straight from a photograph.
I read lots of newspaper articles about LA’s Chinatown in the Los Angeles Herald, articles about the Chinese New Year celebration and also ones about the problems in Chinatown—the mud, the rats, the lack of sewers.
The various crimes and crime scenes? Are they all based on historical crimes or are they fictional?
The crime scene was historical. I managed to find a picture of the apartment where the trunk was found. I had to fill in the blanks and imagine some of the details – like the state of the corpse. But the trunk, the multiple pictures of her lover with white women, all historical.
The police matron bloomers Anna designed, were those based on something real?
I based them on a women’s magazine article from 1908 about camping. The 1900s was considered “the golden age of hiking.” The article recommended pants like the ones I described, to be worn under a slit skirt. So, I just modeled Anna’s pants after the picture, using some of the actual description from the article, them embellished them with frills. And of course, Paul Poiret introduced his harem pants shortly thereafter, though Arab women had been rocking them for years.

Dialogue/Word Choices Both Anna Blanc books are filled with awesome period dialogue – what’s your secret?
I read things written during the period, like novels, eyewitness accounts, magazines, short stories, cartoons, books by humorists, and of course the newspapers. I harvested slang. Then I made a pass through the book and stuck it in wherever I could. Also, the Historical Dictionary of American Slang is great for checking when words first appeared in print.
Wear did you uncover the word “Frillies” which was used to describe both jewelry and underwear. Did I spell that right? I listened to the audiobook, lol!
I got it from a history book dedicated exclusively to underwear