An Interview with Ellen Byron by E. B. Davis

 

 

New motel owner Dee Stern has checked out of the familiar comforts in the Studio City and checked in to the quaint village of Foundgold. Running a rustic getaway in the woods sure beats LA traffic—until murder ruins the peace and quiet . . .

Down-on-her-luck sitcom writer Dee Stern is flipping the script. Twice divorced and wasting her talents on an obnoxious kids’ show, the lifelong Angeleno embraces the urge to jump in her car and keep driving. It's a road trip with no destination—until she pulls into a mid-century motel filled with cobwebs and retro charm. Nestled in the shadow of a national park, it’s a time capsule of a place that, like her, could use some work. So, in the most impulsive move of her life, Dee teams up with best friend, Jeff Cornetta—who happens to be her first ex-husband—to transform the aging ranch into the Golden Motel-of-the-Mountains, a hiker’s oasis on the edge of the wilderness . . .

But Dee and Jeff soon realize there couldn’t be two people more unprepared for the hospitality business. There’s also the panic-inducing reality of prowling bears and a general store as the only shopping spot for miles. Living and working in the middle of nowhere takes some getting used to—especially when a disrespectful guest ends up murdered! Now, with the motel duo topping the suspect list, Dee must steer clear of a meddling park ranger, face her past in show biz, and determine if the killer is a local or tourist. Because as she quickly finds out, there are many things worse than a one-star review.

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I’ve read four series Ellen Byron has created, and I’ve liked each one. Perhaps I like this one the most because it is set in a small rural California town location, to which I’m partial. A Very Woodsy Murder is the first book in the Golden Motel mystery series, which was released on July 23. The setting is east of the more coastal population centers.

 

Although the setting is more rural, there is an urban mix when main character Dee Stern travels to LA to find out more about the victim. Her father still lives there so the book is not entirely small-town. In fact, an LA agent and his wife have a home in the upstate area so there is a mix of LA and its culture in nearby towns of Foundgold and Goldgone.

 

When Dee and Jeff’s first guest is murdered, they are in the frame. Getting themselves off the suspect list and in the good graces of the townsfolk is their aim.

 

Please welcome Ellen Byron back to WWK.                               E. B. Davis

In the book, you recall times with your great aunt who brought you to the region your book is located. How old were you? Did you change the topography? Thanks so much for having me back! I was 19 when Aunt Molly took me to Columbia Historic State Park. (She was actually a great-aunt but we never specified that with each other.) It’s a restored miner’s village and I found it fascinating. And I did cheat geography! The motel in my series shares a border with a national park, of course inspired by Yosemite. In the real world, Yosemite and Gold Rush Country are at least two hours apart, with very different topography.

 

The book’s location came from your background, but isn’t the main character Dee’s former vocation something you, too, did in a previous time in your life? LOL, yes. Very much so! Dee is a “recovering” sitcom writer. Along with my TV writing partner, I had a twenty-five year career writing sitcoms on shows like WINGS, JUST SHOOT ME, and STILL STANDING. I also worked on a lot of shows that came and went and wrote pilots for every network as well as cable channels. I channeled some of my own experiences into the book. I’ll tell people which ones after they read it, wink wink.

 

Having grown up in LA and working there, what are the biggest changes that Dee must adjust to? Dee is very much like me in other ways besides her former career. I’m a city girl. I’ve always felt safer in a city than the country, much as I love bucolic settings. (Sidebar: this is ironic because my NY apartment was broken into four times and I staved off personal danger on more than one occasion in several cities.) Dee has to adjust to the quiet and not be terrified by every little noise! She also has to ingratiate herself with locals, some of whom don’t look too kindly on an L.A. interloper. And of course, run a business in which she has absolutely zero experience.

 

Dee and Jeff married and divorced, but Dee was also married and divorced a second time. What happened each time? With Dee and Jeff, the marriage was an impulsive decision made right after college that they both quickly realized made no sense. They were meant to be friends, not lovers. Dee’s second husband Kai was also a writer, although of drama, and he was so jealous of her success that it destroyed their marriage. More irony: her career took a downturn but Kai wrote a sci fi series where he created a villain named “Lee Flern” he based on her, and it’s an enormously successful streaming series. So now he’s a huge success while she’s struggling. We’ll meet Kai eventually. I’m looking forward to writing him.

 

When Dee bought the motel/cabins, she also ended up with the former owner’s dog, Nugget. What type of dog is Nugget, and what is he like as a pet? Nugget is a big, loping, lazy brown mutt of indeterminate age. He’s pretty much the opposite of a guard dog except Dee does take some comfort in his size, which comes from the bloodhound in him. Nugget is the kind of amiable mutt who makes himself at home wherever he wants to, which usually means he takes up more than half the bed, practically nudging poor Dee off of it.

 

It’s understandable that Dee needed to change jobs, but why did Jeff agree to become a partner? Jeff is looking for a change too. He’s been stuck in a data analyst position and is itching to explore his creative side – still in tech but creating websites and marketing plans for customers. Living and working at the Golden along with Dee will give him the freedom he needs to take a different career path that includes promoting the Golden and hopefully restoring more retro motels eventually. That’s the dream for both of them. Work magic at the Golden, then use what they’ve learned to breathe life into other moribund mid-century motels.

 

I was surprised that Dee wasn’t more suspicious of Michael Adam Baker as their first guest, especially having worked with him. Why wasn’t she more on her guard? She was so desperate to have his stay be a success that she ignored the red flags. He could be charming, so she convinced herself he was sincere because she wanted him to be. There was also a bit of a feeling on her part that if he accepted her, it meant Dee was a TV insider rather than an outsider, which is what so many of us women writers were during my career. My classic example is watching three male writers on a show I worked on early in my career go into the men’s room together and come out with a story fix. I went to the office I shared with my writing partner and said to her, “Until we pee in a urinal, we will never be equal.”

 

I think Elmira knows her baking is lousy. Isn’t it her joke on the community? She doesn’t know because she lost her sense of taste! I think Elmira was once a decent baker but lost her skill when she lost her ability to taste her creations. This was inspired by a friend of my mother’s who was a wonderful cook until she lost her own sense of smell and taste – way before Covid, BTW.

 

Who is Stoney and how did he get his name? He was named by stoners operating an illegal marijuana grow in the backwoods of the national park, which is a real thing, by the way. I originally named him Tokey the Bear but I discovered there’s a whole website dedicated to a character called Tokey the Bear, along with a Facebook page. He was created by residents of Weed, California, which is a real town.

 

Are Foundgold and Goldsgone located near each other? Is there competition or animosity between them? How was each named? The two villages are only a couple of miles apart. The residents of Foundgold have spent decades intimidated by their more successful counterpart of Goldsgone, which is a restored miner’s village and tourist attraction where the shopkeeper dress in 19^th century costumes and speak like old-timey miners. You’d think Foundgold would be the success story but when I was writing the draft, it occurred to me it was funnier if it wasn’t because when miners found gold, they left to spend it. The Goldsgone settlers weren’t so lucky. They wound up stuck there, which ended up benefitting their descendants. The town boss woman, Verity Donner Gillespie, is extremely competitive and threatened by Dee, who wants to put Foundgold back on the map and make the little village its own tourist destination.

 

[Whispering](Are there actual descendants of the “those” Donners in the area?) LOL, I believe so. But that’s not what inspired Verity. When I was in college at New Orleans’ Tulane University, we did a production of a play called Donner and it turned out descendants lived in New Orleans, if you can believe it. I was the prop mistress for the play and they lent us inherited items like an old wooden crib to display in the lobby during the run of the show. One of my many jobs during the production was to guard these historic heirlooms.

 

Why doesn’t Dee like charcuterie boards? It’s not that she doesn’t like them, it’s that she finds them… affected or something. At least when made by the trophy wife of a Hollywood agent. But Dee develops a grudging respect for them and their maker, Serena Keller-Katz when she accepts that Serena isn’t just a rich hobbyist. She’s genuinely trying to carve out her own path and get out of the shadow of her uber-successful agent husband, Callan Katz.

 

Does California really use inmate crews to fight fires? Isn’t there a big risk of them escaping during the chaos of fires? They absolutely do and the program, which is called the California Inmate Firefighter Program – also known as the Conservation Camp Program -  is world-famous. There’s even a TV show running right now that’s inspired by it called Fire Country. The inmate program is highly selective. There’s very little evidence of prisoners trying to escape and inmates can get their records expunged and go on to careers as firefighters.

 

Will Sam Stern, Dee’s voice-actor father, buy the warehouse as a studio? Not in book two, but you can bet real estate agent Jonas Jones has eye on it for the future!

 

What’s next for Dee and Jeff? I have the draft of book two, Solid Gold Murder, out to beta readers. Heavy rains in California expose new sources of gold, creating a second Gold Rush that draws all kinds to the Golden Motel, including four rich, obnoxious Silicon Valley techies… one of whom meets an untimely end at the bottom of an abandoned gold mine. Dee and Jeff have to solve the mystery of his death so Verity Gillespie’s nasty nickname for the Golden – “Murder Motel” – doesn’t stick to the place and ruin them.