Julia Keller had to convince people in the publishing world that it was a good idea to set a series of mystery novels in a small West Virginia town.
Most of those people came from big places like Chicago or New York City. When she described Guyandotte, the small neighborhood tucked off to the side of Huntington, editors didn't understand it's appeal. They wanted to read about horrific killings in the city. She didn't have the words to describe the feelings she had grown up with all her life.
"You know, it's almost impossible," Keller said. "I lived in Chicago for 12 years, and I would constantly run up against that. It was almost like speaking another language. There were as many people in certain neighborhoods as there were in all of Guyandotte or all of Huntington."
Keller finally convinced them.
Her acclaimed series centers around the life of Bell Elkins, a woman whose life story bears some resemblance to her own. Elkins grew up in a small town but left for big-city life. At the beginning of the series, she comes back to the imagined small town of Acker's Gap, where she works as a prosecutor. Though not directly based on Guyandotte, Keller said she draws heavily from her experience there.
Keller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is returning to her home state today for the West Virginia Book Festival. She will host a talk at 1:30 p.m. in the Little Theatre of the Charleston Civic Center and then a book signing afterward.
"I always envied people from Chicago because they could stay in their own hometown and get a really good job," Keller said. "They could do what they wanted and follow their heart in a way you couldn't in a small town."
Keller always wanted to be a writer. She started her career working for newspapers to follow in the footsteps of writers like Ernest Hemingway. Keller believed that working as a journalist would allow her to meet real people around the world she wouldn't otherwise have the chance to meet. She figured journalism would be just the first stop to writing great novels.
She never imagined she'd leave the state, but went to graduate school at Ohio State University. When her father, a professor at Marshall University, died, she seriously considered moving back to Huntington.
But one job led to another, and she eventually found herself at the Chicago Tribune.
"It's hard for me sometimes to go home, I have to admit," she said. "I get a little bit melancholy walking the streets where most of the people I knew are dead."
If she had a bad day in Huntington, she said, it was hard to hide the pain because everyone she passed by in the grocery store knew her. If she had a bad day in Chicago, she could just go for a walk. She wouldn't run into anyone she knew, and she would just slip away into a sea of strangers.
"I think the notion I get at in the novels is that it's a gift and a curse to know almost everyone you pass in the course of the day - that can almost be oppressive," Keller said. "There's something nice about the big-city anonymity."
Many of Keller's readers are just like her. They were born and raised in West Virginia, or some place in Central Appalachia, and left the area to take a job. Elkins will soon face a similar challenge. Keller said that in the sixth book she's currently writing, Elkins will be tempted by a lucrative job offer to leave the state.
Keller says Elkins is a top-notch prosecutor - she's the kind of person you want to be close with, until you're on her bad side. In the most recent installment of the series, "Sorrow Road," Bell comes up against some questionable deaths in an Alzheimer's care facility. Keller weaves the past history of patients in with the current mystery.
Throughout Keller's work, she tries to weave in the joy, sorrow, sense of history and immense pride she has for her hometown so others around the world can see it.
"People who are from other places may brag about their states. People from Texas or New York or Indiana may think where they're from is great, but there's something about West Virginia that draws people home," Keller said. "Whether they go physically or not, they're home in their thoughts."
Reach Jake Jarvis at jake.jarvis@wvgazettemail.com, Facebook.com/newsroomjake, 304-348-7939 or follow @NewsroomJake on Twitter.