Reality Writes
The Reality Writes Podcast stars bestselling mystery author Ellie Alexander and her Tech Guy husband as they reveal the ins and outs of writing. Ellie, who has written for big names like Macmillan and Simon & Schuster, and indie publishers like Storm, shares her journey from story ideas to publishing. Together, they dive into the highs, lows, and funny moments of creating captivating stories. With a blend of humor and honesty, Reality Writes offers a behind-the-scenes look at the writing world. So grab your coffee (or wine) and join Ellie and the Tech Guy for some story-spinning secrets.
Reality Writes
Live From Leavenworth—Sloan Krause Mysteries Q&A
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We're coming to you live from Leavenworth, Washington—the real-life Bavarian village from the Sloan Krause Mystery series! While I was busy signing books at A Book for All Seasons, The Tech Guy was hard at work "researching" the local breweries. In this special on-location episode, we talk about what it's like to write about a real place, why I return in different seasons for inspiration, and I answer your most-asked Sloan questions: Is she coming back? What about audiobooks? Do you need to like beer to love the series? Grab a pint (if that's your thing) and a warm pretzel and listen now! 🍺🥨
Links to places mentioned in this episode:
Leavenworth, Washington: https://leavenworth.org/
A Book for All Seasons: https://abookforallseasons.com/
Icicle Brewing: https://iciclebrewing.com/
Blewett Brewing: https://www.blewettbrew.com/
🎉 Join me on Patreon for bonus content.
Live From Leavenworth
Ellie AlexanderHello, hello, hello, and welcome to a special edition of Reality Writes live from Leavenworth, Washington. I am author Ellie Alexander. This is the podcast where we talk about all things bookish, writer-ish, and today beer-ish? And I'm here with the Tech Guy.
SpeakerYeah, uh here in Leavenworth doing some research.
Ellie AlexanderWhat?
SpeakerAlways got to do the research.
Ellie AlexanderWhat does your research involve? So let's back up and tell our darlings that yesterday I had a book signing at A Book for All Seasons, which is the most incredible independent bookstore in Leavenworth, Washington, actually, like on the planet, if you're really asking. And uh while I was working so diligently, uh, such hard work to have to meet readers and sign books. You, on the other hand, were doing what?
SpeakerUm, I was investigating the local businesses.
Ellie AlexanderOh, really? And what would those businesses entail?
SpeakerBreweries.
Ellie AlexanderOh, okay, good, good, good.
SpeakerAll the breweries. No, there are actually two here that are my favorites. Uh and readers of the Sloan Krause series may recognize them. Icicle Brewing, um, uh, which is uh Der Keller in the Sloan Krause Mysteries, and then Blewett, which is a newer brewery. Well, I mean, it's been open for years now, but it was newer than Icicle, and it was it is Nitro come to life.
Ellie AlexanderIt's so cool. I know. I when I first started writing the series, that brewery did not exist. And I had obviously created Nitro as a pure figment of my imagination. And then fast forward a few years later, we show up and here it is in real life.
SpeakerI know, and we were blown away. It was uh it was kind of it was uh it was late fall, uh, it was cold out, and we were walking around on uh the in the town, and we just came across it and went inside. And while we were sitting there looking to the menu, I just kind of started looking around and I said, I think this is nitro.
Ellie AlexanderAre we at Nitro? How did that happen?
SpeakerAnd it it looks exactly like you wrote it. Yeah. So I know. Yeah.
Ellie AlexanderWhich is incredible. So on this episode, we want to give you a little bit of the sights and sounds of Leavenworths, talk about what it's like to actually be on a book tour doing a book event, and then how I always try to weave in research for that too. And the Tech Guy helps by giving hit me his notes on his beer tasting. Um, and I also want to uh answer some of your most burning Sloan Krauss mystery questions because let me tell you, darlings,
Brewery Research And Nitro In Real Life
Ellie AlexanderI get feedback far and away more about Sloan and when and if she's ever coming back than anything else.
SpeakerYes, uh, I can attest the messages come in very often. Um people are very insistent that they want another Sloane.
Ellie AlexanderWhich I love. Yeah.
SpeakerSo let's start, let's start by asking the question that everybody wants to know. Is there gonna be another Sloane Krauss mystery?
Ellie AlexanderThere is gonna be another Sloan Krauss mystery. You're hearing it her here first, darlings. The issue is I don't know when, which is the sad teaser. And I'm honestly not trying to be a tease about it. It's just it's structural. Like part of my vision is that we would probably re-re-release the entire series so that it's all like in one format, as we've talked a lot about on this podcast. Publishing in general is switching up so much in terms of mass markets going away. In fact, at the book signing yesterday, there was still a juicy little stack of Death on Tap and Mass Market. I'm like, how did you find these? Should I just take them all home with me? And they're like, no, we want them. Um, so there's that vision. And once that process happens, then I will release book seven. But part of being here, especially in the springtime, is my vision for book seven will pick up where the shorts last left off, which will be spring in the village. It will involve some kind of wedding festivities. That's my little teaser on what the content will be. For long-term Sloan fans, you know what I'm talking about. But the other thing is I think it's important if you're writing about a real place, or even if you're writing about a fictional place, but you're taking pieces of the real world to come see it at different times of the year and experience it in different seasons and different um levels of busyness for a place like Leavenworth, where it's so festival-centric. We've been here for the last few days. It's it's spring, everything is so lush and green. You were literally playing the sound of music.
SpeakerRight. We were walking down the street yesterday. Uh, you can, for those watching, you can see the Maypole behind us in the center of the square. And it was just amazing.
Ellie AlexanderNo, they're piping in the sound, and we're like, is this real? Bird song everywhere, blooms. It does feel like you are living a scene from the sound of music. So there's that piece, and also the rhythm and flow of what's it like to be in the village when it's just kind of a quiet Saturday weekend versus, you know, maybe Mayfest or Oktoberfest or one of the big festivals. So I always
Sloan Krause Book Seven Update
Ellie Alexanderlove to do that, even if I'm not specifically working on a book at that point in time, just to take copious notes and pictures and videos that I can reference back to when I am then deep in the throes of writing a first draft.
SpeakerYeah, yeah. And it's been really interesting being in Leavenworth this time. We've been here many times. Um, Leavenworth's getting a glow up.
Ellie AlexanderYeah, it is. Woo!
SpeakerUm, yeah. I mean, the the just the uh the unit, the the wood that we're sitting underneath right now, all of this uh whole rooftop uh section here, this patio overlooking the main square is all brand new. They're doing construction on the main boulevard in front of all the shops along the main thoroughfare there, and it's gonna be this gorgeous stamped concrete that looks like bricks. Um, we were talking at the new welcome center uh just yesterday, uh, where we saw Death on Tap.
Ellie AlexanderYeah, they're featuring Death on Tap at the Welcome Center in Leavenworth. Like, how amazing is that?
SpeakerYeah, but they told us that they're doing a bunch of improvements along the main boulevard where they're adding in new trees and uh pedestrian paths and everything. It's just it it is the Leavenworth was amazing before, but it is continuing to uh add the features and all the bells and whistles.
Ellie AlexanderThe pro for me is also just getting a really like hyper local focus from writing because wherever we're going, whether it's at the welcome center or at the bookstore, or if we're talking to our server at Blue Wit Brewing last night, I'm trying to pick up all those little tidbits of insider information. And the tech guy gets um irritated at me at some point because I'm almost like, who do you want to kill off? Right, where should I hide a body? Like I'm already thinking that this concrete that they're building, I mean, somebody could, yeah. I'm just saying I'm I'm not making any promises, but it's a possibility.
SpeakerNo, every shop we're in, every restaurant we go to, uh the the eventually the the conversation leads to murder.
Ellie AlexanderI know.
SpeakerUh, which is great when you're you for the person that you're talking to, but I'm standing behind just watching the people walk by that are just picking up on sentences in the conversation and and don't like they they don't know the context from the beginning that she's a mystery author, that she's talking about killing people fictionally, everything. So there are some eyes like you know, as as people are walking by, they're just like, Oh, can't you hear what she said? You know, and it's just it it is pretty hilarious. But um surprisingly, on this trip, no one was willing to give anyone up. They it sounded like for the most part that everyone coming to Leavenworth from a tourist perspective has been pretty lovely with all the uh employees and workers here, which is really good to hear.
Ellie AlexanderIt's great to hear, except it's not so great to hear from a mystery lady perspective because I need the juice. Um but this tracks back for any darlings who are writers, and I talk about this a lot when I'm coaching new writers or in my mystery series masterclass course, which is just I know it's hard to put yourself out there, especially as a newbie writer, potentially, and I remember that feeling too. But bring a notebook, bring your phone, bring whatever, just take notes furiously once you're finished with the conversation. But if you ask people, they are usually so willing to share their stories. They want to talk about the places they love, they want to give you little insider tips about other places to go visit or potential little out-of-the-way nooks and crannies that you might be able to use in your story setting. So it's always worth asking, I think.
SpeakerDefinitely. Well, and and you get um, I think the like the absolutely the local perspective. Yes. Which you no matter how many times you visit a place, you can't you can't learn all of that. So you have to you have to pick the brands of the people uh if they're willing and talk about murder.
Ellie AlexanderAnd talk, yeah, just do a little murder chat.
SpeakerUm, do you want to talk about what brought us here uh on this particular trip? Uh in terms of a book for all seasons and what they've done.
Ellie AlexanderYeah, this is another thing, and we've done a variety of podcasts about the importance of indie bookstores and what so important champions they are of writers and books in general, but a book for all seasons, which I reference, which is here in the village, has been shelving my books since the very beginning and they connect readers literally from all around the world. I get so many DMs, emails, messages from readers who in like the East Coast, New York, Florida, you name it, who were like, I was in Leavenworth, Washington for vacation and went into a buffer all seasons and found your book, and now I'm obsessed with Sloan, uh, which is such a gift because this is a very tourist-centric town. So it's a really fun feature for them to have Death on Tap as a little souvenir. They talk about like readers come in, and because it's a cozy escape, I think people are looking for vacation
Note Taking Like A Working Writer
Ellie Alexanderreads. But Death on Tap still, it was originally published in 2018, is still their number one bestseller, um, which is just incredible to me. Um it's such a gift to get to have those connections with the bookstore and with the readers and put it all together.
SpeakerSo yeah, they were uh that you were talking with the owner of of a book for all seasons, and they just told you, like, oh, by the way, they had hit a milestone in sales for the book, and it was like, well, we had to go to Seattle anyway, so we'll head over to Leavenworth and meet up at a Book for All Seasons.
Ellie AlexanderHow did you do?
SpeakerYeah.
Ellie AlexanderOkay, I promised I would answer some of your Burning Sloan questions, and um, in addition to the number one question, which is when and if Sloan will ever come back, I often get asked about the shorts. I wrote three Sloan Krause short mysteries. So these are all like little novellas. You can read them individually. They do line up in terms of the timeline with the rest of the books in the series. The main question I get asked about the novellas is are they in print? And the answer is yes. We put together a print collection a couple years ago. So originally they were published as ebooks because you cannot do a print copy of a book that a novella that's like, I don't know, 25,000 words. You get this like tiny little comic, right?
SpeakerI mean, you can do a print version, but the the problem is that bookstores don't want to stock something like that because it's too small. Um, second, uh readers would be uh upset about the cost of that because at a certain point the the uh cost of printing a book you can only go so low. Right. You know, it there's a minimum, there's a minimum cost to do that, and it just doesn't make sense to do one at a time. So we did all three together. And if you look at the the uh books online, you'll see that I believe that there are books 5.5, yes, 6.5, and and maybe 6.6. Now I'm gonna have to look that up. But anyway, if you look that the the 0.5 uh uh means that it comes in between five and six, six point five means it becomes between six and eventually seven. Yeah. So um, so if you want to read everything in order, that's what you need to look for.
Ellie AlexanderAnd like everything else in the series, each book can be read as a standalone. The same goes true for the novellas, but if you've been following Sloan's story arc all along, there are some little nuggets of subplot and backstory that go woven in. The collection of shorts in print is available at bookstores. So if you search for the first pour, right?
SpeakerFive. First pour. Oh, first pour. I thought he said, First four. We're talking numbers and I got confused. Yeah.
Ellie AlexanderI forgot what I titled it. Yeah. Um, if you search for the first poor either on my website or you know, you can buy a signed copy from a book for all seasons. They are out in print. So you can definitely do that. The other question I get asked all the time about Sloan is audiobook. When is audiobook coming? Are they ever going to be available in audio? The first few were available in audio. The way audiobook rights work is that the publishing houses sell those separately. So I have no control because they have to go out and sell those rights. And sometimes they sell them right away and the books come out. And then because this series got canceled at book five by the publishing house, and then we picked it up. We haven't reached out for audio for book six and for the shorts yet, because again, I want to re-release the whole package with a book seven. So audio will eventually be coming. When book
Indie Bookstores And Tour Moments
Ellie Alexanderseven comes out, it will be like boom, here you go. You can have all the Sloan back, full catalog, print, ebook, and audio.
SpeakerIs Sloan gonna end at book seven?
Ellie AlexanderI don't think so because I have quite a few ideas of things that need to happen after that. She's just really like come into her own. We were walking by her little cottage earlier this morning. Like, I have had pages and notebooks of ideas of where I would love for the series to go next.
SpeakerThat's amazing. Yeah. I mean, okay, well, what other questions do readers constantly ask you about Sloane?
Ellie AlexanderReaders constantly ask me why Leavenworth.
SpeakerYeah.
Ellie AlexanderUh, and this is why, right? It is the quintessential, beautiful Bavarian village. We are literally right now surrounded by mountains, as far as you can see. The sky is crystal blue. There's a little tiny touch of snow left on the peaks, green hills. Yesterday we went on a walk around Blackbird Island, which, if you've read the series, you would be familiar with, darlings. There were bear warnings. We saw the evidence of where a bear had slept the night before.
SpeakerUh, we saw bear prints. We saw bear prints. That was cool. Um we saw deer, which is funny because I mean, having lived in Ashland, we saw bears all the time, but it is fun to think about them being in this area. We saw deer swimming.
Ellie AlexanderWe saw deer swimming in them when Ashley was.
SpeakerThat was the first time we ever seen deer swimming, but we saw them crossing the channel. That was that was really cool. Never knew.
Ellie AlexanderNever knew. Um, I think just because there is such a light, festive, cozy, fun atmosphere here in the village, it just makes sense to me to set a cozy here. And when we first came, I was immediately like, I have to set a series here. Uh, the second thing that uh is always on a list, or I guess we're probably at number five or eight or something by now, uh, is Am I a Brewer? Have I ever brewed beer before? The answer to that is no, absolutely not. The tech guy dabbled in home brewing for many years. And when I was first sketching out this series, that was the inspiration was watching you do that process.
SpeakerYeah, and it was, I mean, it was a great hobby. It was super fun. We don't have the space now in California, but um the wherever uh our next adventure takes us, I'm hoping that it has space to get back into it because it was fun. Uh brewing beer mixes like science and art and creativity, and and then the end result is amazing because you get to drink
Novellas Print Order And Audiobooks
Speakerit. So um uh as long as you uh do a little research and and and and a lot of practice, um, you can generally make some pretty good beer. And I had two or three that I were my go-to recipes. Um, my favorite of all was uh Rainbows and Unicorns IPA, um, named by Sky Guy, actually. Or son named that one. He didn't drink the beer at the time, he just named it that. Um uh and I I did have a lot of fun. That was that was a lot of fun to be brewing while you were writing the series.
Ellie AlexanderAbsolutely. The tag-along question that I get to that all the time is do I need to be a fan of beer in order to enjoy the series? And the answer to that is absolutely not. Beer, yes, of course. Um, Sloane runs a small brewery, so it weaves its way into the series. But I have heard from so many readers over the years that are like, I despise beer. I never want to drink a beer. This is my favorite series. Like, because it's so much more about this, about a little touch of Bavaria, it's about the outdoors, it's about the food that weaves into beer, and then it's also, you know, really like a family saga. And Sloan's a really strong female lead character. I love writing her. This is not a spoiler, but at the very beginning, we learn that she and her husband are um in the process of getting a divorce. But I love writing that it's not, I mean, yes, of course, there's angst involved with it, but it's not this awful, contentious kind of thing. And and part of her growth arc is finding her way back to a friendship with her husband. So um I just I love all aspects of writing about Sloane, and beer is just one of those, that you don't have to be a beer fan to enjoy the series.
SpeakerYou don't, yeah, you don't have to know anything about making beer, you don't have to, you don't have to drink beer while reading the books, although it's it's recomm I would recommend it. Um but uh no, that question always surprises me actually because I know for a fact that you have bake shop mystery readers who do not bake. Sure, absolutely. But no one ever asks, do you need to be into baking or like pastries in order to read the bake shop mysteries? So I think that there is definitely a stigma around beer and brewing, and just it it's kind of a mysterious world. Like people who have walked past a brewery see those big shiny tanks, and they're like, Well, that looks super complicated. I I couldn't understand, but you don't go into the necessarily too deep in into the science. I think you take like the writing that you do in uh the Bake Shop Mysteries and how well you describe food and the process of baking and everything. And you do the same thing in Sloan, and it makes it really accessible to anyone and really interesting. I mean, we've we've heard from so many readers over the years who've knew nothing about brewing, nothing about the process, don't like beer, but they love the series and they've loved learning about how beer is made.
Ellie AlexanderYeah, and I was just gonna say the tanks are great for hiding bodies, just so right.
SpeakerYeah, that's yeah. Yeah, that may happen. So just FYI.
Ellie AlexanderUh the other question I get asked very often about Sloan is uh if I come to Leavenworth, where should I go? What are the places? Um, and we touched on this a little
Why Leavenworth Works For Cozy
Ellie Alexanderbit with the two breweries, which are Icicle and Blewitt or Keller and Nitro, respectively. But then pretty much anywhere you go in the village, you're going to recognize. Um, you're gonna see the Maypole and the center of Town Square, and you're gonna be able to walk the same path. And you can go to Blah Blackbird Island, you can walk a little farther down um the main street here, and you'll run into Sloane's Cottage, which is really a guest cottage as part of the NZN Inn, which is right across the hotel. But as I described Leavenworth in the books, if you visit, it's gonna feel very real because it is.
SpeakerIt is. And make sure that you start and end your trip at a book for all seasons.
Ellie AlexanderUh for sure. Yeah.
SpeakerBut yes, uh, there's there's beer, wine, um, brats. Brats, so many brats, broths, chocolate, lots of Bavarian food. Um I I know we've described this a million times, but the way that that this all works, I know peop there there are a number of people who probably never heard it, but literally every building in Leavenworth is fashioned in the Bavarian style. So even places there's a Starbucks here. If their sign is hand-carved wood, so the Starbucks logo is in like a Bavarian style. Um uh as we sit here recording this, we're sitting across the street from Waffett Bank, and their big sign is hand carved wood in the Bavarian style. And the buildings are just amazing. I mean, every building is just amazing to look at. So many murals.
Ellie AlexanderOh, yeah. Hand-painted murals, wood carvings, rock carvings, waterfalls, gardens, and that's just Leavenworth proper. You can go five minutes outside of town, and then you have high alpine lakes and hiking trails and mountain biking and kayaking.
SpeakerAnd you talked a little bit about the mountains that's being right here, but in order to truly experience it, because we've posted, I don't know, hundreds at this point, pictures of Leavenworth and video and everything, that nothing can do it justice. That the mountains are so close to town that as we sit here recording this, they 15 minutes. I could just walk across the street and be walking up a mountain. I mean, it they're they're they're Right here.
Ellie AlexanderIt's really hard to not just like go sound of music on myself and just like spin through the hills. Uh the last question that I get asked very often about Sloane is when should I visit Leavenworth? And really, like, I don't think there's a bad I'm not just I'm not getting paid by Leavenworth to promote the town or anything like that. But I don't think there's a bad time of year to visit. In spring and summer, it's this varied lush green and blooms, and you can be outside, you put float the river, you go for a hike.
SpeakerWe'll we'll drop a link to the uh official Leavenworth website in
Where To Go When To Visit
Speakerthe show notes. But the one thing that you need to know about the town is that it it any time of the year there's a festival going, probably multiple festivals going. Um and so with the exception of winter and the the lights festival, the only the only time winter it might be a bit of a challenge is actually getting here because of the snow, because it snows a lot here in Laporg. I think what are we 90 inches a year, I think is is about what uh what they average. So um but it makes this place even more magical when it when it does snow.
Ellie AlexanderYes, and fall is gorgeous because you have obviously all of the fall color, Oktoberfest, and then as the tech guy alluded to, winter is Christmas markets and then winter lights from December all the way through March now. So you come and see the stars and then there's winter ice carvings. There's really it's just it's all about what you like in terms of seasonality, but I don't think that there's a bad time that you could come visit.
SpeakerYeah.
Ellie AlexanderAnd should they come visit?
SpeakerAbsolutely. I don't want to go home. I want to stay. Can we stay?
Ellie AlexanderNext time. Next time. It just means we're gonna have to come back soon.
SpeakerAll right.
Ellie AlexanderAll right. Well, on that note, darlings, uh till next time from Sloane's little version of Bavaria.
SpeakerYeah, and and if you have other questions about the Sloan Cross Mysteries or Leavenworth itself, uh be sure to click that send over some message link in the show notes and let us let us know what what you want to know. Uh so with that, until next time, pros.
