Interesting Interview: Jessica Schilling & Eric Scace

Here's another first for the Interesting Interview series: a 2 for 1 special!  Jessica Schilling and Eric Scace are a couple who are not only great folks, but great Sherlockians to boot.  Jessica Schilling won the Baker Street Journal's Morley-Montgomery Award in 2020 and was invested into the BSI this January.  Eric Scace won the Morley-Montgomery Award this year and was tapped to give a fascinating talk at the Minnesota conference last month.

Both participants are super cool, and I was lucky to get to spend time talking to Eric in Minneapolis.  Seeing Eric and Jessica together during that conference was like seeing a personification of yin and yang; they have such standout personalities but if you see them together it's clear what a strong unit they are.  You'll see that Jessica and Eric bring a great energy to Sherlockiana, and the future looks bright with both of them in it!

How do you define the word “Sherlockian”?

Jessica: I’d say that anyone who’s fascinated enough by the Canon — or by the scholarship or community that surrounds it — has earned the moniker just on that fascination alone! One of the best things about this little alternate reality of ours is that it’s something people can approach from so many different angles. Literary scholar? Write a paper. Wannabe consulting detective yourself? Go deduce the dates or locations of some of the cases! Film buff? Dive into all the different ways Holmes and Watson have been depicted over the years. There really is something for everyone here.

Eric: What she said! Other observers have pointed out that most collectors need a focus; few can be the vacuum-it-all omnivore that John Bennett Shaw was. Most Sherlockians have focii for their attentions (physical or otherwise) — and for the types of events (if any) in which they prefer to participate. A attribute of the world of Sherlockians is acceptance — which, unfortunately, appears all too scarce in other spaces. The pervasive willingness to share what one knows or has with others in our community is similarly so welcome.

How did you become a Sherlockian?

Jessica: I’ve got both Eric’s good influence and my own stubbornness to blame for this one! When he and I first met, we were splitting the difference between Boston and Boulder and I’d go visit whenever I had the chance. At some point I’d asked about his plans for the weekend, and he replied “I’m going to a fancy black-tie Sherlock Holmes party” — and when I said something about wishing I could grab a last-minute flight, explained that the annual Speckled Band meeting was (at the time) a men-only affair. That felt like enough of a challenge that I had to dive back into the stories again and refresh my memory! I’d enjoyed reading them as a child, but returning as a “grown-up” cast the mysteries, and Holmes’ deductive powers, in a whole new light. And from there I was hooked. (And lucky enough to be in the inaugural class of women in the Speckled Band a few years later!)

Eric: In a spell of sick days home from school, my parents directed my attentions to the Heritage edition of the Canon off a bookshelf. Being a linear reader, I began with the introductory material of Vincent Starrett and Edgar W Smith. My introduction was thus backwards: I learned of the BSI and Writings about the Writings before reading the Writings themselves. But I hardly considered myself a Sherlockian — just a happy reader (and re-reader and re-re-…). Later Andy Peck enticed those of canonical bent to form a university scion society the met at Victoria Station. Whilst based in DC Peter Blau allowed my attendance at Red Circle events… but it wasn’t until the BSI conference at Harvard in this century that Richard Olken, John Constable, and many others in New England ensured I didn’t again escape back outside the Holmesian domain.

What is your profession and does that affect how you enjoy being a Sherlockian?

Jessica: I’ve done a lot of things for a living over the years — from music critic to magazine editor to web developer, and I’m currently helping manage (with Eric) the University of Colorado’s radio station — but the one professional activity that’s really made an imprint on how I’ve approached the Canon was my work as a journalist and newspaper designer. There are so many nuances of Victorian technology that quietly take a starring role in so many of the stories, and how Holmes uses the newspapers of his time to do his work has always been fascinating to me — whether that’s in the actual words being used, or in how they’re assembled and printed! Both my papers published in the Baker Street Journal have actually been deep dives into newspaper printing of the time and what it can teach us about the details of Holmes’ case work.

Eric: Similar to Jessica, my first job was in my local newspaper, as a compositor on a Linotype machine and other devices displacing the world of metal type. Much of my second of four professional careers involved data networking and the development of today’s global Internet. The role of Victorian newspapers and telegrams obvious Canonical curiosities — how did that actually work back then? One reads the Canon will new eyes for activities in the shadows and corners surrounding the participants in each story. 

What is your favorite canonical story?

Jessica: Maybe it’s a cliche — and it’s not got a journalism or printing tie-in at all — but like Holmes, I’m a bit smitten with Irene Adler. So I’ll have to go with SCAN.

Eric: I love Jessica's choice — and yet there are so many intriguing candidates. For me, perhaps VALL for the shear breadth of geography, characters, classic Holmesian prowess, the illustrations of Paget and Steele, and just some unforgettable dramatic lines: “I am Birdy Edwards.” for instance.

Who is a specific Sherlockian that you think others would find interesting?

Jessica: If I’m allowed to call out a friend, I’d love to highlight Amanda Downs of The Norwegian Explorers of Minneapolis! She’s just an amazing human in general, but as a Sherlockian I’m always amazed by the way she’s able to bring people, ideas, and different aspects of our community together, whether that’s through her work as a visual artist (she’s the illustrator of the Sherlock Cat stories, in addition to many others!) or as someone who bridges beautifully the scholarly side and the “fandom” side of Sherlockiana. Plus, she’s an absolutely fantastic SPODE companion.

Eric: A great pleasure in any gathering of Sherlockians comes from discovering new friends whom one wishes lived nearby: people with whom one discusses not only Sherlockiana, but many other unrelated topics of mutual interest or curiosity. Three hours at table with such people feels shockingly short, and the parting wistful. Our mini-SPODE table of four with Amanda and PJ Doyle in New York was just such an event, an accidental and delightful pairing. The names of another half-dozen such encounters come readily to mind (you know who you are!)— it hardly seems feasible to pick just one individual.

What subset of Sherlockiana really interests you?

Jessica: I did a fair amount of research at university into the very early days of online fandom, and as such I’ve always been fascinated by the different ways in which people engage with the topics and communities they love. In the years that I’ve been lucky enough to attend Sherlockian events around the country, it’s been as much fun listening to talks or attending meetings as it has been to observe how people engage with this world and with each other. In a community where there’s everything from full-tilt “cons” to a peer-reviewed journal, seeing how people engage with the Sherlockian universe is almost as much fun as that universe itself!

Eric: Despite my many trips to England for work and pleasure, and Jessica’s five year London residency, neither of us have met anyone of Holmesian bent — which feels a bit like having missed half the fun. (We seek advice on this matter.) I’m always looking forward to the next intriguing thing, it seems.

Most relationships have little inside jokes or small points of contention.  Are there any Sherlockian items that have worked their way into your relationship?

Jessica: Other than the looming, leaning pile of Sherlockian books on either bedside table? Or the fact that we should probably own two copies of Les Klinger’s Annotated so we don’t have to fight over them? I mean … no. Not at all. We’re totally normal. Really.

Eric: Other than the race to read the BSJ first. Otherwise, normal. Mostly. Well, except for that time — no, never mind; that’s a story for which the world is not yet prepared.

Both of you have won the Morley-Montgomery Award for the best article to appear that year in The Baker Street Journal.  How did each of you decide on your topics and do you write solo or with the other one as part of the writing process? 

Jessica: We’re both pretty big nerds on our own favorite topics, but as former news people, I don’t think either of us can resist the allure of a good story. This winds up being the best of both worlds — we’ve each got an in-house critic and editor should we want one, but neither of us is offended if the other asks their work to be a surprise!

Eric: Definitely we write solo — Jessica’s writing voice stands head and shoulders above my plodding prose, as these words demonstrate. But as a work comes together with that “click” of formation of the cohesive whole, it’s fun to pass the completed material to the other to get that first reaction of an initial read-through. I did have a bit of fun reproducing at full size the newspapers discussed in Jessica’s articles — complete with the appropriate holes cut with short-bladed nail scissors in the instance of the découpé warning in HOUN.

What book would you recommend to other Sherlockians?

Jessica: This might sound like it’s out of left field, but I promise it isn’t: I’m going to recommend Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things. Just as Holmes is constantly reminding Watson to lean harder into his observational abilities, Don Norman — one of the pioneers of user experience design — looks at ordinary objects with an eye to truly understand and disassemble how their design helps or hinders their users. In fact, if it had been a field in his era, I’d maybe even suggest that our good detective might have retired into a UX practice rather than beehives … but that’s just a hunch.

Eric: Be forewarned should you follow her excellent recommendation: you will then see the world as full of typos and exquisitely poor design. As befits my plodding linear methodology, when introduced recently to a local young teenager enthralled by her first canonical readings, we gave her a copy of Les’ Annotated (which Les kindly inscribed to her).

Where do you see Sherlockiana in 5 or 10 years from now?

Jessica: Barring any insider knowledge of an up-and-coming television franchise or film reimagining of our hero, my vote — or maybe, rather hope? — is that we continue to welcome more people, of more backgrounds, ages, races and interests, into this community both as we continue to stage more post-covid, in-person events and as we hopefully keep making get-togethers more accessible remotely. We’re all happy to be back meeting face-to-face again, but I think we’re all also aware of how many opportunities to meet others we had in the virtual space that might not have happened if it weren’t for those years of isolation! So, I’m rooting for the best of both worlds going forward.

Eric: That next surge of popular interest is likely not far off. There’s a study yet to be made of the potentially predictable periodicity of popular attention to the Master. We look forward to welcoming them and “their Sherlock".