Velvalee Dickinson by Barbara Dickinson

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Barbara Casey will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Thanks for visiting us! Why do you write in your genre? What draws you to it?

I started out writing novels for both adults and young adults. Most of my storylines involved mystery and things that were not easily explained. For example, in my novel The Gospel According to Prissy, I introduce a little girl who has the gift of prophesy. In a young adult mystery series I am writing, THE F.I.G. MYSTERY SERIES, my main characters are three young girls, orphans, who have intelligence quotients in the genius range. I really enjoy stretching my imagination to things that are not already over-written, but are believable. In the three published books in this series – The Cadence of Gypsies, The Wish Rider, and The Clock Flower, the stories are based on reality. Gypsy curses, the hidden chamber beneath Grand Central Terminal in New York, and the Chinese belief in longevity provide the backdrop for these three young orphans – FIGs (Females of Intellectual Genius) to discover their own truths.

Name one thing you learned from your hero/heroine.

All of my books have strong female protagonists. In my nonfiction books, these women aren’t necessarily role models. Nevertheless, they are determined, they know what they want and persevere. You have to admire those character traits even if they are somewhat misdirected. It is the same in my novels. The females are the leaders. They aren’t afraid to go after their goals no matter what barriers they have to overcome.

Do you have any odd or interesting writing quirks, habits or superstitions?

I tend to be compulsive obsessive. I like everything in its place before I can sit down and write. Pets have to be fed, house straight, everything where it should be on my desk. I wake up very early, so am ready to start writing by 4 am.

Look to your right – what’s sitting there?

Ten years ago when I moved to Georgia, a young hound-mix dog adopted me. He simply showed up and didn’t leave. I named him Benton. Over the years other dogs have come into my life that I have cared for, and most recently, two kittens. One of the kittens – Reese - has claimed territory on my desk next to my computer and that is where she naps. Earl Gray, the other kitten and Reese’s best friend, naps in the reading chair in my office. Benton has become the nanny to all of them and stakes out his territory on a rug in front of my desk.

Anything new coming up from you? What?

I am working on Book 4 in THE F.I.G. MYSTERY SERIES. It will be the last book in the series, and I hope it will be published by the end of the year.

Do you have a question for our readers?

I love to hear from my readers, so I hope they will feel free to comment.

Thank you so much for your interest in my writing. I hope to visit with you again soon.

My best,
Barbara

Velvalee Dickinson was born in Sacramento, California, graduated from Stanford University, married three times, and then in the early 1930s moved to New York City where she eventually opened her own exclusive doll shop on the prestigious Madison Avenue. It was there that she built her reputation as an expert in rare, antique, and foreign dolls. She traveled extensively around the country lecturing and exhibiting her dolls while building a wealthy clientele that included Hollywood stars, members of high society, and other collectors.

When medical bills started to accumulate because of her husband’s poor health and business started to fail with the onset of World War II, she accepted the role as a spy for the Imperial Japanese Government. By hiding coded messages in her correspondence about dolls, she was able to pass on to her Japanese contacts critical military information about the US warships. After surveilling Velvalee for over a year, the FBI arrested her and charged her with espionage and violation of censorship laws. She became the first American woman to face the death penalty on charges of spying for a wartime enemy.

Velvalee Dickinson: The “Doll Woman” Spy is a carefully researched glimpse into the “Doll Woman’s” life as a collector of dolls, and as the highest paid American woman who spied for the Imperial Japanese Government during World War II.

Read an Excerpt:

As intrigued as Eunice (Kennedy) was of these three women—Iva Toguri D’Aquino, Mildred Elizabeth Gillars, and Lilly Stein—Eunice was especially drawn to Velvalee Dickinson, now 56 years old and 29 years her senior—the former owner of a prestigious collectable doll shop on Madison Avenue in Manhattan who had been convicted of spying for the Japanese during the war. By the time Eunice met Velvalee, the “Doll Woman” had already been at Alderson a little over four years, spending her time writing letters to her brother, Oswald, and asking him to send her things like “bobbie pins,” reading the publication Cathedral Bulletin, learning how to play the electric organ, writing magazine articles, and reading books such as Citidal by A.J. Cronin and The Razors Edge by Somerset Maughan. She also took care of a yellow male cat “which will soon be a father,” she wrote to her brother.

It is ironic that on the very day Velvalee was given the maximum sentence of ten years in prison at Alderson and a $10,000 fine for violation of the censorship laws, J.P. Kennedy, Jr., son of ex-ambassador Joseph Kennedy and Eunice’s brother, was killed when a Navy bomber he was piloting exploded in flight. And only a year earlier, in August 1943, another brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, had been seriously injured by the Japanese in the Solomon Islands, an injury that caused him chronic back pain for the rest of his life.

Some speculate that Eunice felt sympathetic toward Velvalee because she, like Eunice, had graduated from Stanford University. In fact, by strange coincidence, Velvalee belatedly received her degree the same year that Eunice graduated from Stanford. Or maybe it was because she believed Velvalee’s story that it had been her husband, Lee, who spied for the Japanese and not her. So many of the women Eunice had met and counselled through her work in social services, after all, had gotten into trouble because of their controlling and manipulative husbands or boyfriends. Or it could have been that Velvalee had worked in social services for a time while living in San Francisco, an interest and passion that Eunice also shared.

About the Author: Barbara Casey is the author of several award-winning novels for both adults and young adults, as well as book-length works of nonfiction, and numerous articles, poems, and short stories. Her nonfiction true crime book, Kathryn Kelly: The Moll behind Machine Gun Kelly, has been optioned for a major film and television series. Her nonfiction book, Assata Shakur: A 20th Century Escaped Slave, is under contract for a major film. In addition to her own writing, she is an editorial consultant and president of the Barbara Casey Agency. Established in 1995, she represents authors throughout the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan.

In 2018 Barbara received the prestigious Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and Top Professional Award for her extensive experience and notable accomplishments in the field of publishing and other areas. Barbara lives on a mountain in Georgia with her husband, and three pets who adopted her: Benton, a hound-mix; Reese, a black cat; and Earl Gray, a gray cat and Reese’s best friend.

http://www.barbaracaseyagency.com
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Velvalee-Dickinson-Barbara-Casey-ebook/dp/B07QB3PQV1/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1

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