Sarah Franklin
asked
Amy Stewart:
Hi Amy! I know that you are from Northern CA (my brother lives in Arcata) but I was wondering...why Bergen County, NJ? What caught your eye to center the books around a County on the other end of the country from you? Personally, I currently work for Bergen County (across the driveway from the jail castle building!) and get excited when you mention local places! I love your books and cannot wait to read more! Thanks!
Amy Stewart
Hi! These books are based on a true story, and that's just where they happened to live. (I live in Portland, OR now, by the way).
While researching The Drunken Botanist, I ran across a story about a man named Henry Kaufman who was arrested for smuggling tainted gin. I thought I should do a little more investigation to see if Henry Kaufman went on to do anything else interesting. That’s when I found an article in the New York Times from 1915 about a man named Henry Kaufman who ran hiscar into a horse-drawn carriage driven by these three sisters,
Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp. They got into a conflict over payment for the damages, and it escalated from there. The sisters received kidnapping threats, shots were fired at their house, and they were generally tormented for almost a year. I never did figure out if this Henry Kaufman was the same one who was arrested for gin smuggling, but I kept digging into the story of the Kopp sisters.
Once I compiled a short stack of newspaper clippings, I thought, “Well, surely somebody has written a book about the Kopp sisters. At least a little local history book, or a children’s book, or something.” I was amazed to find out that nothing had been written about them at all. There was no book, no Wikipedia page—nothing. They’d been completely forgotten about. I reconstructed their life stories from scratch. A lot of people write historical fiction about well-known figures from another era, but I think it’s a very different thing to pluck someone from obscurity and put the facts together for the first time.
I usually do an event at the Ridgewood Public Library every September when the next installment comes out, so stay tuned for news of that.
There's tons more info on my website at amystewart.com/bookclubs. I even have pictures of the inside of the jail from Sheriff Heath's day.
While researching The Drunken Botanist, I ran across a story about a man named Henry Kaufman who was arrested for smuggling tainted gin. I thought I should do a little more investigation to see if Henry Kaufman went on to do anything else interesting. That’s when I found an article in the New York Times from 1915 about a man named Henry Kaufman who ran hiscar into a horse-drawn carriage driven by these three sisters,
Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp. They got into a conflict over payment for the damages, and it escalated from there. The sisters received kidnapping threats, shots were fired at their house, and they were generally tormented for almost a year. I never did figure out if this Henry Kaufman was the same one who was arrested for gin smuggling, but I kept digging into the story of the Kopp sisters.
Once I compiled a short stack of newspaper clippings, I thought, “Well, surely somebody has written a book about the Kopp sisters. At least a little local history book, or a children’s book, or something.” I was amazed to find out that nothing had been written about them at all. There was no book, no Wikipedia page—nothing. They’d been completely forgotten about. I reconstructed their life stories from scratch. A lot of people write historical fiction about well-known figures from another era, but I think it’s a very different thing to pluck someone from obscurity and put the facts together for the first time.
I usually do an event at the Ridgewood Public Library every September when the next installment comes out, so stay tuned for news of that.
There's tons more info on my website at amystewart.com/bookclubs. I even have pictures of the inside of the jail from Sheriff Heath's day.
More Answered Questions
Wllm Worth
asked
Amy Stewart:
Thanks for responding. I recently started selling my collections with the help of a friend by starting an Ebay Store called "Vintage Reads and Items". Check it out when you get a chance or need to do some mindless task to get out of a case of writers block. I'll be looking thru your store also. I also use books from the early 1800s to 1900s for dialect of characters, phrases fro different eras. Do you also do this?
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