{"id":1684,"date":"2021-08-19T21:00:53","date_gmt":"2021-08-20T04:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/?p=1684"},"modified":"2021-08-24T09:51:42","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T16:51:42","slug":"tell-me-your-story-mariah-fredericks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/?p=1684","title":{"rendered":"Tell Me Your Story – Mariah Fredericks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Over the many years I\u2019ve been writing and reading, I’ve been fascinated by other authors and their journeys, and I always want know why they decided to start writing, what keeps them going, what keeps them writing in the face of the inevitable difficulties of life. This month I am so pleased to welcome Mariah Fredericks, author of one my favorite historical novels of 2021, Death of a Showman<\/a>. In fact, I love all of Mariah’s Jane Prescott novels, set in early 20th century New York, and the wonderfully human and relatable lady’s maid Jane Prescott. Death of a Showman<\/a> was named one of Broadway Direct’s<\/em> “Top Theatre Books to Read This Summer 2021”, and received an enthusiastic starred review from Publishers’ Weekly<\/em>, which read in part, “Fredericks offers up a cast of original, human characters, each longing for something out of reach \u2013 the lover married to someone else, the star-making part. As the tale unfolds, Fredericks skillfully overturns all the reader’s assumptions about the story and where it’s going.” I couldn’t agree more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mariah was born and raised in New York City, where she still lives today with her family. She is a graduate of Vassar College with a BA in history. Besides her Jane Prescott Mysteries, she has written several novels for young adults; her novel Crunch Time was nominated for an Edgar in 2007. Check out her website here.<\/a> But as wonderful as Mariah’s books are, her personal story is even more inspiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I Was Born With Pieces Missing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mariah Fredericks<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I was born with pieces missing. One piece in particular: the roof of my mouth. Where most people have a cathedral arch of hard palate, I just had a sad little rim. I had to be fed using a ducky nipple to control the fluid intake so I didn\u2019t choke. When I was old enough, I had surgery to stretch the existing tissue into something that could serve as an upper palate. To this day, there is a small hole at the center, which gives my voice a slightly nasal quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the operation there was speech therapy, so I could learn the mechanics of making a proper \u201cT,\u201d, a clear \u201cS\u201d or a sharp, crisp K. This entailed afternoons spent on a rug with Dr. Bleiberg, watching the position of his teeth and tongue, trying to match it so I would sound like him. (\u201cShe has a remarkably small mouth,\u201d he told my mother.) Despite the good doctor\u2019s efforts, I started school mush mouthed. But I didn\u2019t know that; to my ear, I sounded fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To other kids, I sounded like I had something wrong with me. At that age, kids don\u2019t find difference or disability particularly sympathetic. There was name calling, labels\u2014words we no longer use in print. Tentative friendships that ended suddenly when the other kid realized our connection was not socially advantageous. I became one of those sensitive kids who cries easily. Teachers found me irritating; I can remember more than one gritting her teeth as she gently inquired, What was wrong now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The message was pretty clear: if you can\u2019t say something right, say nothing. This is not to say that no teacher was kind, no kid was brave\u2014or similarly ostracized. But saying things out loud, expressing thoughts, making those simple connections that involve conversation\u2014all that felt like way more trouble than it was worth. More than one report card said, \u201cMariah needs to speak up more in class.\u201d No, no, she doesn\u2019t was my view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But perhaps because conversations weren\u2019t happening in real life, dialogue was always flowing in my head. Dialogue needs characters to speak; I borrowed them from TV shows and movies. Then made up my own. When Sybil was in movie theaters\u2014\u201cThe True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Separate Personalities\u201d\u2014I thought, Doesn\u2019t everyone have 16 people running through their heads? I loved all the things social outcasts tend to: books, theater, television. In short, I loved stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When my father bought an electric typewriter, I inherited his Smith Corona, which I have to this day. In print, where my sloppy T\u2019s and nasal tones weren\u2019t an issue, I could make myself clear without anxiety. In 7th grade my teacher encouraged me to read a \u201csatiric\u201d piece I had written on Wuthering Heights. I don\u2019t remember the piece at all; I do remember the feeling of my classmates enjoying it. Giving them the chance to laugh at something they hated\u2014book reports\u2014made them generous. I still recall a kid I had been deathly afraid of saying, \u201cGood job.\u201d And, miraculously, meaning it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started writing a column for the school newspaper. Every month, kids would come up to me in the halls or classrooms to tell me what they found particularly funny or true. Print became not only safe, it became a connector, an adventure, a way to take risks. I could tell my story and discover it was other people\u2019s story as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will surprise no one that as a friend, I was the listener, not the instigator of drama. All those years of speech therapy and silence taught me how to listen, pick up on speech patterns, to hear what\u2019s not said. I write a mystery series about a lady\u2019s maid in 1910s New York. I can easily trace the concept of a servant that no one notices, and so is able to see and hear what others miss back to my own sense of myself as a teenager. It is no accident that my detective introduced herself to the world with the line \u201cI will tell it.\u201d Which she followed with an apology, \u201cI will tell it badly.\u201d But that\u2019s just an acknowledgement that all narratives have gaps and biases. Reviews and readers praise Jane Prescott\u2019s voice. And it has been wonderfully liberating to let her speak for me\u2014and see so many people enjoy what she has to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_____________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mariah’s website address is https:\/\/www.mariahfredericksbooks.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy Death of a Showman<\/strong><\/em> at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bookshop.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon Kindle edition<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the many years I\u2019ve been writing and reading, I’ve been fascinated by other authors and their journeys, and I always want know why they decided to start writing, what keeps them going, what keeps them writing in the face of the inevitable difficulties of life. This month I am so pleased to welcome Mariah […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[205,206,204],"class_list":["post-1684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death-of-a-showman","tag-jane-prescott-mysteries","tag-mariah-fredericks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2H58s-ra","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1684"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1690,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions\/1690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}