DeAnna Cameron writes romantic historical fiction featuring feisty heroines destined for passion and fame. Before making her fiction debut with THE BELLY DANCER, the story of a good Victorian girl thrust into the real-life belly-dancing scandal at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Ms. Cameron worked as a journalist, writing and editing for several Southern California newspapers and magazines. She’s a member of the Historical Novel Society, Romance Writers of America and the Literary Guild of Orange County. She lives in Orange County, California with her family, and is at work on her next novel.
Interview by BWG member Marianne Donley
DeAnna Cameron: You certainly can’t beat the hours. You can write any time of day or night, and you don’t need to commute anywhere to do it. But that’s the glib answer. The deeper answer, at least for me, is that it’s an opportunity to explore lives other than my own. It’s an opportunity to examine life’s questions and to try to make sense of a world that often seems nonsensical. I guess what I truly love is that while real life can be random and disorderly, as a writer I can create a world where there is meaning, purpose and order – at least for my characters.
DeAnna Cameron: DANCING AT THE CHANCE began as a sequel to THE BELLY DANCER. Many of the dancers who performed at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair–the Egyptians and others–went on to vaudeville after the fair closed and it was my intention to follow them there. But as the story took shape and new characters emerged, there was one who really captivated me. It was a young girl who lived in the theater's basement. Her mother was the theater's seamstress, and she grew up idolizing the performers. She was such a sassy, brassy, sharp-witted girl that I couldn't help but wonder what she would be like when she grew up. So I moved the story forward a few years to do just that.
When the story open, Pepper MacClair still lives in the theater's basement and she's trying her best to make it as a chorus girl, which becomes increasingly complicated when she learns the famous Florenz Ziegfeld wants the theater as a venue for what becomes his famous Ziegfeld Follies. Like THE BELLY DANCER, there's some history in DANCING AT THE CHANCE–about vaudeville and early cinema. There's some dancing–even belly dancing--and, of course, there's a love story.
DeAnna Cameron: I’m working on two new historical novels at the moment. One is a Victorian mystery set in New Orleans, and the other is set in colonial America, which is opening up a whole new historical period to me. I hope to have at least one of them finished by the end of the year. Since publishing is such a slow endeavor, it will probably be another year before either is available to readers.
DeAnna Cameron: I do! Thank you for asking. My website is www.DeAnnaCameron.com. I have quite a few extra things there for readers pertaining to the novels. On THE BELLY DANCER page, there are links to historical photographs of the fair and the Egyptian dancers who performed there, a map of the fair, and videos of what belly dancing looked like back then. I’m still populating the DANCING AT THE CHANCE page with extras, but so far there are links to some of the ragtime tunes referenced in the novel, videos of old kinetoscope films, and recipes.
DeAnna Cameron: It started quite by accident. I was in college and needed to fulfill a participatory art requirement. It seemed like a fun class, so I signed up. I was lucky to have an instructor who discussed the dance’s history and its evolution, as well as its rhythms and movements, so it didn’t take long to realize there was much more to this dance form than I ever realized. What really hooked me, though, is that at its heart, belly dancing isn’t a performance dance. It’s a social dance. It grew out the harem, out of view of men, at a time when there were no televisions and stereos or other forms of modern entertainment. So what women did to pass the time was to dance, to entertain themselves and each other. It really is quite fun to dance in a room full of women, which anyone who has ever taken a belly dance can tell you.
BWG: What interested you in Little Egypt?
DeAnna Cameron: Little Egypt is regarded by many to be the first well-known belly dancer in America. The name is not so well-known now, but it was once quite famous. There’s a 1951 film called Little Egypt that tells a fictionalized tale of a dancer at the fair, starring Rhonda Fleming. And there’s the 1961 song by The Coasters, which was probably more famously done by Elvis in the 1964 movie Roustabout. In belly dance circles, she’s an icon.
But she’s also a mystery. The fact is there continues to be a pretty healthy debate over the identity of the original Little Egypt. And it’s important to say “original” because at the turn of the last century the name “Little Egypt” was used by a number of imitator dancers. There were so many and record-keeping was so shoddy, there really is no definitive answer on the true identity of the first Little Egypt. So who she was and where she got her start is debated by historians even today. That fascinated me. I found myself imagining a kind of life story for her and the circumstances that might have brought her to the fair. So that became a key part of THE BELLY DANCER.
DeAnna Cameron: I don’t keep words of inspiration posted by my computer, but I do have inspiration corkboards where I post pictures of people and places I use as reference for my novel’s characters and settings. I also post pictures of clothing and carriages and just about anything I might find that is specific to the novel’s time period and which might play a part in the story. In THE BELLY DANCER, I posted photographs of the Chicago World’s Fair, particularly those taken of The Street in Cairo exhibit in the Midway Plaisance, as well as the wealthy Gold Coast neighborhood where Dora lives. With DANCING AT THE CHANCE, I posted photographs of Old New York, along with images of kinetoscopes and the first moving picture cameras, stage makeup kits, music boxes, and theatrical costumes and ball gowns.
I recently discovered Pinterest, a website where members can "pin" images they find online and organize them on virtual boards. It's quite similar to my own creative process, so I've been recreating my boards online to share with readers. I have a board of character inspiration for DANCING AT THE CHANCE here, and Old New York images here.
BWG: One of my favorite writing books is Syd Field’s Screenplay. I was surprised how much the structures of movies and book are so very similar. Have movies influence what or how you write? Do you have a favorite movie?
DeAnna Cameron: I wouldn’t say movies influence what I write, but I do enjoy watching films about the Victorian and Edwardian time periods. I love the fashion and the scenery, of course, but I also enjoy listening to the dialogue. I take note of the idioms, the rhythm of conversations, and anything that sets the characters’ speech apart from modern speech. There’s a hazard in watching period films, however. Many filmmakers will ignore or fudge historical accuracy if it serves the story they’re trying to tell, so it’s important to keep that in mind.
I have so many favorites, but a couple of them are House of Mirth and A Room with a View (actually any Merchant-Ivory film) for their exquisite details and dialogue. I also love Moulin Rouge for the sheer spectacle.
BWG: What’s the best thing a fan ever said to you?
DeAnna Cameron: One thing I’ve heard from several readers–and which makes me particularly happy with THE BELLY DANCER–is that it was the first book they have read that really captures the joy of dancing and the physical feeling of dancing. That is something that was so important to me as I was writing it. I really strived to convey my own love for dancing in general and belly dancing in particular, so it’s just about the best compliment I can receive.
DeAnna Cameron: The Victorian era is my absolute favorite period in history. We were deep into the Industrial Revolution and there was so much hope and optimism about how the new inventions and scientific advances were going to improve our lives. You can imagine how exciting it must have been to see all that new technology at work: the advent of telephones and telegraphs, washing machines and automobiles. Our lives were changing, but at the same time, the prevailing social rules and conventions were still very old-fashioned. Things like society’s ideas about women’s rights, morality and personal freedom. So there was an interesting tension that existed between people’s inner and outer lives. I find that endlessly fascinating and compelling.