Scenes from a Small-Town Bookstore

Last month, I took a job working part-time at the independent bookstore in our small college town. I’ve admired the female-owned bookstore from afar and as a customer, attending many author events there and meeting some of my favorite writers. But as we all know, writing can be a lonely business. Most of my days as an empty nester are spent talking to my dogs, researching and recording podcast scripts, working on essays, short stories, and longer lengths of work. It can be days before I leave my neighborhood and sometimes it feels isolating. 

So, when I saw the opening for a part-time bookseller, I jumped at the chance to apply. Fortunately, the owner knew me from my previous job as editor of a regional magazine. She hired me and I began my training last month. I work two or three days a week, which is perfect for my schedule. I work with a large group of women with very diverse backgrounds (the owner if a former high school biology teacher), the store manager writes in the romantasy genre, another co-worker studied data sciences, a member of the town’s historical society and a former archivist, and so on. You get the idea. We have a wide range of interests, which helps us assist our customers no matter what type of book they are looking for. Because there are so many of us, the job offers us the flexibility we need. 

One of the first things I noticed on the job was how happy the customers are. I never realized how busy the bookstore is, but it makes sense. It’s on the main street of a small college town, and we have a diverse group of customers walking into the store every day. They are so happy to find us, because we have a carefully curated selection of not only books, but stickers, journals, puzzles, and gift ideas. Children happily skip into the store to search for the next book in a series they are devouring, readers come in looking for their most current book club selections, and parents visiting their students at the college say they love visiting the store whenever they’re in town. Because our store is small, we can’t carry everything in stock but have created a system where customers can place orders with us with no shipping and the book are usually available within three to five days. 

With inflation on the rise and more people budgeting their money carefully, I’ve noticed books are a comfort item people are willing to splurge on. 

In the past few weeks, I’ve seen: 

• A man with a National Parks employee patch on his polo shirt searching for a copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road so he could take it backpacking with him over the weekend.

• A neighborhood mom and her friendly black lab, Scout, who visit weekly to pick up books or simply chat about what we’re all reading these days.

• A middle-aged couple and their son picking up a copy of Yellow Face by R.F. Kuang because they are reading it for their family book club.

• Children from the local elementary school stopping in to pick up a book for their grade’s new reading club.

The list goes on and on. With only one register, there are times I’ll look up and see a line wrapped around the front of the store, but people are happily clutching their books and have no problem waiting. It brings me joy to be surrounded by book lovers such as myself, even in these tumultuous times. 

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and creator/host of the true crime podcast, Missing in the Carolinas. In 2023, the bookstore she works in appeared in the movie, The Other Zoey.

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3 comments book nerds, independent bookstores, life as a bookseller, Renee Roberson, the writing life, true crime podcasts

Unearthing True Crimes From the Archives

When I started my true crime podcast, Missing in the Carolinas, five years ago, I thought I would be focusing solely on missing persons cases in North and South Carolina. My creative muse had other ideas. Little did my muse know that scanning old newspaper archives would lead me to intriguing crimes from the past (many with no digital footprints) and inspire me to broaden the context of my storytelling. 

I could give many examples of how this has happened, and by reading e-mails and reviews from listeners I know they appreciate the historical crimes and stories of missing people just as much as I do. 

Most recently, I was researching a missing persons case from the 1980s in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the story of Mary Kathryn Ennis, when I learned that her disappearance was solved when two prison inmates contacted the police with information. This was strange enough, but in one of the newspaper articles reporting the discovery of her body, I learned an enterprising young college student in the area had been murdered when he tried to enter the home of a family he didn’t know in the middle of the night. Of course, then I had to follow that rabbit hole to its conclusion. These were crimes I had never heard about, so I’ve documented them for my listeners in Episode 140: The Kidnapping and Murder of Mary Kathryn Ennis and the Death of William McMichael in North Carolina. 

A few months ago, I decided to research serial killers in South Carolina, as I’ve already produced an episode on North Carolina serial killers and it received more downloads than my usual content on missing people. That’s when I discovered a man named Lee Roy Martin had terrorized a small community by kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and strangling young women in Gaffney, S.C. in 1968, and the media eventually dubbed him “The Gaffney Strangler.” 

Martin called a local newspaper editor and anonymously confessed to his crimes before he was caught, and he even shared that he had murdered a woman whose husband was convicted of the crime and was sent to prison. This case was even more fascinating because two concerned citizens, driving around to search for one of the missing teenage girls, spotted Lee Roy trying to hide the body of one of his victims. If they hadn’t followed him and taken down his license plate, police might have had a harder time finding the killer. This story has been featured on numerous true crime documentaries, including “A Crime to Remember.” 

Writing about true crime was never something I imagined myself doing, but I find myself drawn more and more to these old cases. I think I appreciate the challenge of finding the long-forgotten primary sources and making sense of them in a new timeline. 

One of my listeners commented the following on a social media post about a 1972 crime: 

I love that you report on so many crimes I’ve never even heard of! Than you for giving a voice to these victims. 

When I first created my podcast, I never knew I’d had have the opportunity to share these stories in such great depth and even provide closure for family members who never knew the full details of these crimes. 

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and host/creator of the true crime podcast, Missing in the Carolinas.

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1 comment Missing in the Carolinas, North Carolina true crime, Renee Roberson, research methods, South Carolina true crime, true crime podcasts

Turn Your Passion into a Book

 

Years ago, I read a fun book by author Christina Katz called Get Known Before the Book Deal: Use Your Personal Strengths to Grow an Author Platform. She shared practical tips on simple ways to slowly create a brand and online presence while creating content about something you really love. 

 Phase 1of her blueprint included “Platform Development and Building.” Although I have been writing for years, I spent the first part of my career writing parenting and lifestyle articles, as well as working in magazine publishing. Those markets were oversaturated so I never focused much on building a platform besides establishing an online presence with my writing blog. 

My ideas about platform building changed when I started my podcast, Missing in the Carolinas, almost five years ago. I’ve mentioned here before that it evolved over time—focusing on missing people and then adding in cold cases and crimes that have already been solved. My listeners have grown organically, they e-mail their ideas, I conduct interviews with local true crime authors, and I’ve become fascinated by finding crimes in old newspaper archives. Although I don’t have a large following on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube, I did establish separate pages for the podcast and try to update those a few times a week. The small group of followers I have there are curious, encouraging, and often engaged. Where I’ve seen the most organic growth is in my podcast feed—between Apple and Spotify podcasts I have close to 10,000 followers. 

As Katz suggested in her book, I’ve established my niche, regional true crime in North and South Carolina. I created a separate website specifically for the podcast. Because I write most of my own scripts, I’ve amassed a stack of research and true crime stories in the past several years. I try and repurpose my content wherever I can, either sharing it or my blog or creating short videos for my YouTube channel, but there is still so much more I can do. Most podcasters I know have either created a Patreon channel with bonus content, published books, or created merchandise to sell to their followers. I’ve done none of that. 

Last week I made a decision and texted it to my whole family. “This is what I’ve decided to do,” I said. “I’m finally going to self-publish a book with crimes that have been featured on the podcast. My target date is fall.” I’m trying not to tell myself that this is an unrealistic deadline, when I’m still working on revising and pitching my suspense novel to agents and trying to start a new work of women’s fiction. Most of the writing and research of the true crime book has already been completed—I need to organize it into chapters, rewrite a bit, conduct some new interviews, and hire an editor and cover designer. I have a focus for the book, crimes from the Carolinas that aren’t as well known to the public. After almost five years of working on this podcast, I’d like to create a product to sell and am hoping the podcast audience will help with book sales. We'll see how it goes!

 Have you used a passion of yours to write a book, create a blog or podcast or any other products? I’d love to know more!

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer who also produces the true crime podcast, Missing in the Carolinas. She's currently seeking representation for a novel about, what else? A podcaster trying to solve a mystery. Learn more at www.FinishedPages.com and www.MissingintheCarolinas.com.

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4 comments building an author platform, Missing in the Carolinas, Renee Roberson, true crime podcasts, true crime writing

My Full-Circle Moment

 

This past week I experienced a full circle moment. From 1996 to 1998, I worked at my campus newspaper, The Blue Banner, at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, starting out as a staff writer, and then later moving up to a features editor and then the news editor. Most of the time I was covering current events on campus, writing about pop culture, and assigning stories to other staff writers. I was not writing about true crime. Sure, it was something I had always been interested in reading, but there wasn’t really a crime beat on our newspaper. In fact, I didn’t even know about an unsolved murder on our campus from 1973 until just a few years ago. 

I’m not even sure how I found out about the case, where a 19-year-old young woman was sexually assaulted and murdered on a Sunday afternoon while studying alone in the botanical gardens adjacent to the campus. I just know that I read an article that the student newspaper published in 2021 and was shocked.

My next step was to learn as much as I could about the case, and unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of information out there. I was surprised when a blog post I wrote garnered some attention, especially from a retired law enforcement officer who lived in the area when Virginia "Ginger" Olson was murdered. We exchanged phone calls and he shared memories of the event, which stayed with him throughout the years because he was in elementary school when it happened. He even knew who the two people were that discovered Ginger after the murder, two teenage boys who lived nearby. 

I knew I wanted to pursue the project further, but didn’t know where to begin. I dug into the newspaper articles and put together a timeline of all published reports. I could tell police had zeroed in on one suspect, but never released his name. I followed rumors in the town of Asheville about different suspects, and as it turned out, that was quite a rabbit hole. I requested a meeting with a cold case detective in charge of the case, but didn’t learn a lot of new information, other than that the primary suspect, who he still didn’t name, was deceased, and it had been for many years. I released a podcast episode based on what I knew, hoping to stir some new interest in the case.

Then I got a message from another UNC-Asheville alumni, now a college professor in West Virginia, who was also interested in the cold case. We exchanged information and he had uncovered a lot more than me. He and his co-author and brother put together a book proposal and pitched it to a small press. It was immediately accepted, and they only had a few months to write and edit the book for publication. It was a whirlwind. A few weeks ago I interviewed Brian and Cameron Santana on my podcast. 

The case is finally receiving more media attention, and they have named the primary suspect in the murder. I was flattered that they thanked me in the acknowledgements of the book! 

And on Friday, in my full-circle moment, a reporter with The Blue Banner interviewed me about my interest and work on the case. I never imagined as a young, inexperienced news reporter in 1998 that I would one day be writing and researching true crime and being quoted in the newspaper that gave me my start. Never put limits on what you can accomplish. And if you get the chance, check out A Murder on Campus: The Professor, The Cop, and North Carolina’s Most Notorious Cold Case.

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and the host/creator of the Missing in the Carolinas podcast. She is currently seeking representation for her novel about, what else, a podcaster trying to solve a disappearance!

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2 comments A Murder on Campus, Brian and Cameron Santana, Missing in the Carolinas, Renee Roberson, true crime podcasts, UNC-Asheville, Vriginia Marie Olson

My True Crime Notebook

 

I have one of those journals I got as a gift with a positive affirmation stamped on the front cover in cursive. It tells me how beautiful, smart, and talented I am and says I am going to do amazing things. But if you open the notebook, you might be surprised at what you find jotted down on the pages. 

This journal has become my true crime notebook. 

The first page has a post-it note where I’ve written “NC/SC John and Jane Does,” a note, no doubt, I wrote as it came to me and didn’t have the notebook nearby. The opening pages hold the original outline for my true crime podcast, “Missing in the Carolinas,” along with ideas for the first four episodes. I have domain name ideas for the eventual corresponding website, marketing, surveys, and merchandise items. 

I’ve jotted down notes from various episodes of true crime shows and documentaries. Most of the time my entries are brief, as I’m usually writing them down before I forget amid working on something else. 

While studying a cold case from North Carolina, I came across an archived article from August of 1984 in The Charlotte Observer with the headline, “Henry Lee Lucas ties to SC crimes (alleged).” Beside that I wrote, “Netflix documentary “The Confession Killer” about Henry Lee Lucas.” These notes turned into Episode 46: A Review of “The Confession Killer.” 

This past fall, I wrote: “Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month/November/Heddie Dawkins/High Point.” Often the pages feature a brain dump, where you can tell I’ve had a brainstorm session to try and plan content for the next few months. I’ll list out national holidays and awareness weeks and months to tie in content, such as with Ms. Dawkins, who was featured in Episode 73: Missing Senior Citizens from the Carolinas. 

While researching one case, a news brief in an old newspaper article caught my eye and I wrote: “Murder solved in Flat Rock. 16-year-old Pamela Denise Durham was shot and killed by a former Broadway performer, 64-year-old Wilton Clary. He was her voice instructor.” This turned into Episode 85: Denise Durham, Shelby Wilkie, and Marissa Carmichael. 

If I ever lost this notebook and someone outside of my family picked it up, I have a feeling they would be intrigued, and hopefully not horrified. But my true crime notebook never lets me down. When I’m having a day where I’m not sure what to write about next on my blog or need ideas for a podcast script, I can flip open the notebook, scan it, and quickly have two or three ideas. One of the last entries in it so far has the name of a serial killer in Charlotte, N.C. who murdered eleven Black women in the Carolinas before police realized what the common denominator was—many of the victims had worked with the man at a local fast food restaurant. And he was caught during the month of March, so I think I know what I’m working on next.

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and host/creator of the podcast Missing in the Carolinas. She will be teaching a webinar called “Introduction to True Crime Writing” on March 14. Learn more about the webinar, which offers the option to pitch a true crime article or project idea to Renee, here.

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1 comment Missing in the Carolinas, Renee Roberson, true crime podcasts, true crime writing, writing about true crime

The Making of a Podcast Episode

Due to my current workload, I’ve been working on producing new episodes my true crime podcast, Missing in the Carolinas, every other week. I have a notebook where I keep my ideas for topics, and I have an e-mail account set up where listeners can send in suggestions. I check to see what national holidays are coming up. For my most recent episode, I wondered if there were any missing persons cases or true crimes that took place near Valentine’s Day. When I went back to my list of ideas, I noticed there was an unsolved murder from Asheville, North Carolina, from February 14, 1987. I penciled in that case for the week of Valentine’s Day this year in my project management software and began researching. 

One of the investments I’ve made for my podcast is a premium membership to Newspapers.com. It has been well worth the money I paid for it because it features more than 834 million pages of historical newspapers. Once I began researching the Valentine’s Day abduction/murder of a young woman named Pamela Murray from a shopping mall, I realized another victim had been linked to the same killer. Reading the news reports in chronological order, I could see the suspect had been lingering at this same mall for several days in a row, exposing himself to one woman in the parking lot and following another into a women’s bathroom. This became the central focus of my episode, along with the reports of how evidence found at two murder scenes linked two women to one suspect. I looked for other news items to include in my script.

There is another well-known case from my state, the disappearance of an 8-year-old named Asha Degree, and she also went missing around Valentine’s Day in 2000. Since I had never covered her before on my podcast I gave a timeline of her case along with recent updates. And since the podcast was about a cold case, I included the arrest of a suspect in a 1984 double homicide from Charlotte, North Carolina. (Genetic genealogy strikes again!) One of the things I enjoy the most about creating my podcast is finding ways to weave various cases like these three all together in one narrative. I’m always on the hunt for stories to share and explore on Missing in the Carolinas. I follow the pages of my local news sites and bookmark posts so I can find them later. Sometimes I’ll be reading an archived newspaper article and scan the page to find something else to jot down in my notebook. Ideas are all around you, if you just keep an open mind and a good place to take notes. 

You can read an abbreviated transcript of the my podcast episode, "Episode 54, The Pamela Murray and Beverly Sherman Cold Cases" here.

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and host/producer of the true crime podcast Missing in the Carolinas. She will be hosting a 90-minute webinar, “You Can Start Your Own Podcast!” on March 22. She will share examples of different formats, what kinds of software, subscriptions, and other tools you may need, finding ideas for creating podcasting content, monetization ideas, and how you can repurpose your materials. Learn more about Renee at her podcast website.

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1 comment making a podcast episode, Missing in the Carolinas, North Carolina true crime, Renee Roberson, true crime podcasts

What's Your Angle?

This past week, as I worked on the script for a podcast episode, I had a terrible case of Imposter Syndrome. While researching the story idea, I found out other true crime podcasts had covered the same topic. One used the same book I was reading as the basis for her episode. Even though I was already several pages into the script, I seriously considered giving up.

Then I started thinking about all the investigative crime shows I watch on television, like “48 Hours” and “Dateline NBC,” and all the different spinoffs of Investigation Discovery shows. There are some stories that get told over and over on these types of shows, but it doesn’t keep me from watching them if I recognize the case.

The trick, I told myself, is finding your own angle. After all, as a magazine editor, the angle is what I advise writers to find when working on their assignments. Is someone writing an article about a new bakery in town? What’s the angle? Oh, the owner is a trained pastry chef specializing in French treats who has baked for three different United States presidents? (True story, by the way). There’s the angle.

When I was working on a podcast script about a disappearance in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, I watched an episode of the Investigation Discovery Show “Hometown Homicide” while I was working on my script. I recognized the show uses a formula—they delve into three different “theories” and sometimes insert fictionalized or composite characters into the mix. When I scheduled the interview with one of the authors of a book about the mystery, she and I discussed her being interviewed for that TV show. She had no idea they were going to change the names of real people on the island and disagreed with the way the show was edited. I made sure to provide a variety of questions for my own interviews so I could make sure this retelling of the story was different from other shows I’d seen about it, while still staying true to the facts.

So once I talked myself out of how much I sucked as a podcaster this week, I thought about my angle. The podcast episode explores a man named Larry Gene Bell, who was executed for kidnapping and murdering two young girls in South Carolina in the mid-1980s. There have been a lot of podcasts and TV shows (and even a made for TV movie) about his crimes. What I wanted to explore was three women who went missing from my town in the 1970s and 1980s when Bell actually lived here. He was never conclusively linked to the women’s disappearances but there have been journalists and law enforcement that have speculated. I started off the episode by talking about the three women and then segueing into Bell’s crimes. I hope the point of difference made for an intriguing episode for listeners.

If you ever find yourself stuck with any type of non-fiction writing (articles, personal essays, blog posts) stop for a minute and brainstorm what you want your angle to be. Once you narrow that down, I guarantee you’ll have an easier time getting the words out and down on paper.

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and magazine editor who also hosts the true crime podcast, Missing in the Carolinas. Learn more at missinginthecarolinas.com.

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4 comments finding your story angle, magazine writing, podcast scripts, Renee Roberson, true crime podcasts

Three Reasons Female Writers are Addicted to True Crime

This spot gives me all the creepy feels.

Almost every day I hit the greenway in my neighborhood, earbuds in, for a two to three-mile run/walk. And 85 percent of the time, I have a true-crime podcast playing to help me pass the time. It’s probably not the best choice of entertainment for a solitary workout on a greenway, but I know I’m not alone in my podcast choices. It’s an addiction, an obsession I can’t break. I even attended a writing conference specifically geared toward crime writers at the beginning of August called MurderCon. It was fascinating.

During this conference (where the majority of attendees were women, I’m not gonna lie), we sat in classrooms unflinching as actual bloody crime scene photos played out on the screens in front of us. We heard tales of cases from former F.B.I. and ATF agents, law enforcement officers and forensic anthropologists.

I had my own therapist recently ask me why I thought I was so obsessed with true crime. I couldn’t really explain it to him, other than to say I felt like I’d dodged many unsavory characters throughout the course of my lifetime and I always wonder “what if?” After doing a little more research on this topic, here are three reasons I feel women (and female writers such as Ann Rule) are so fascinated by true crime.

It Teaches Us Situational Self-Awareness
I guess for me, the more I know, the more I can protect myself. When I hear stories of the various situations these crimes happen in, I make a mental note in my head. Each time I’m walking out on that greenway, my eyes are always shifting around me to keep my surroundings in check. I also don’t go out shopping alone at night very often, and if I do, I keep my keys in my hand and my phone in my pocket so there are no distractions.

It Gives Us an Adrenaline Rush
I’ve seen this mentioned in several articles. Hearing about these crimes and the capture of the criminals gives us a rush of adrenaline we can’t say no to. Think about how the runaway success of podcasts such as “Dirty John,” “Dr. Death,” and “Up and Vanished,” or the Investigation Discovery channel and the now re-branded crime-focused Oxygen network. We keep tuning in episode after episode, to hear the startling conclusions, and for me, this rush of adrenaline combined with endorphins from exercise makes for a combination I turn to each and every day.

It Gives Us a Glimpse of the Dark Side of Humanity We Can’t Explain
Bingo. For me, it all goes back to motive. I was listening to a podcast recently called “22 Hours: An American Nightmare,” and I couldn’t wrap my brain around what the convicted killer’s motive would be. I always want to dig deeper, to know why so-called “normal” people do these crazy things, and many writers feel the same way. Many of the short stories I write are based off actual cases and other writers do the same. Gillian Flynn, anyone? She was inspired to write the runaway hit Gone Girl after the Lacey Peterson disappearance.

I don’t think we’re all obsessed with true crime because we secretly harbor maniacal, murderous fantasies. I think the truth lies somewhere in between—we want to learn how to better protect ourselves, understand people better, and . . . of course, receive that addictive rush of adrenaline.

Renee Roberson is an award-winning freelance writer and editor who is one of the biggest true crime addicts you’ll ever meet. She wrote her thriller/suspense story, “The Polaroid,” after studying an unsolved missing persons case from the 1990s.

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7 comments female writers and true crime, Renee Roberson, true crime podcasts, writing about true crime

Take the Plunge

I have a bad habit of putting things off.

In my day job, I put off telling people I can’t meet deadlines because I don’t want them to see I’m struggling. Even if the reason I’m struggling is because I’m a one-person department.

In my day-to-day life, I put off telling friends and family that I need help because I don’t want to be a burden, or show people how vulnerable I really am.

I also put off those “big” dreams I have, because I somehow feel like I’m less deserving of them than other people. Who am I to think I could ever earn money off those big dreams?

But lately I feel like there are puzzles pieces I keep finding and turning over, and each one takes me just a little closer to my “big” dream. I have more than one big dream, though. However, I’m now starting to see they can all be connected if I do things right.

So what is my big dream that I don’t feel like I have the right to pursue? Podcasting. I want to be a podcaster. It makes sense. When I was younger, I thought I would try and be a broadcast journalist and report the news on TV. But in college, I had a professor steer me toward the student newspaper and that’s where I ended up finding a home. But now, I find myself listening to podcasts multiple times a day, and I know what makes a good one. I also know the genre of podcasting I’m drawn to—true crime and missing persons cases.

Once I finally got honest with myself, I sat down and did some brainstorming this past weekend. I looked up all the equipment and software I would need to start up a podcast, and I already have most of it here in my home. I have the writing skills necessary to produce a good script. I’m a confident public speaker. I’m a journalist and know how to interview people. I have a family member who is good at audio editing. I have a clear outline of the podcast I want to produce because I had to write up a simple proposal for one a few months ago when I entered a local radio station pod “quest’ contest. (I didn’t advance to the finals because I didn’t have a huge network of people choosing to vote for me every day on Facebook—so that was understandable). I already have a website, and a blog where I write posts related to what my podcast would be about. I write thriller/suspense fiction stories and novels, which I can also share with my audience.

I’m as qualified as anyone else to start up this type of podcast. I just have to do it, put it out there, and start promoting the heck out of it. I know there is a market for this type of podcast, or ones like “Up and Vanished,” “The Vanished,” “Over My Dead Body,” and so many others wouldn’t be binged by listeners like me on a weekly basis.

I’m putting aside the negative self talk and taking the plunge. I’m writing about it here to hold myself accountable. My next step is to put a launch date 4-6 weeks away on my calendar, record at least four episodes and hope to find the audience it deserves. Wish me luck!

I challenge you to take steps to pursue your own “big” dream, if you aren’t already. Where will you start?

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and editor who knows how to tell a good story. Visit her website at FinishedPages.com.

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1 comment career advice, creating a podcast, pursuing your writing dream, Renee Roberson, setting goals, true crime podcasts