Interesting Interview: Jen Kneeland

This week's Interesting Interview is with the one and only Jen Kneeland!  Jen is active in The Priory Scholars of NYC and The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, has participated in The Baker Street Almanac, and founded 221B NYC, a group that is actively bringing new folks to Sherlockiana.  While she is well known to New York Sherlockians, many people across the country have missed out on getting to know a genuinely delightful person.  So for all of us outside of New York, let's get to know a Sherlockian who always has a smile on her face, Jen Kneeland!

How do you define the word “Sherlockian”?

I tend to define “Sherlockians” as a self-selecting group.  Anyone who is a fan of Sherlock Holmes has the potential to be a Sherlockian.  To me, the main differences between a casual fan and a Sherlockian is people wanting to apply that label to themselves, and the drive for MORE.  Whether that be more stories by way of pastiche/adaptations, more discussion around the stories, more time re-reading stories, or even just more community with other fans.  A Sherlockian is a fan who seeks out something beyond just a single read of the original texts.  

How did you become a Sherlockian?

I became a Sherlockian slowly.  I’d read a few of the short stories ("The Red-Headed League" and "Adventure of the Speckled Band") in a middle school anthology and enjoyed them, but at the time it didn’t lead to my seeking more.  In a way, technology led me back to Holmes—when I first got an e-reader and was looking at stories in the public domain to download, remembering the stories I had read years ago,  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was one of the first books that I downloaded.  It was still a fairly solitary pursuit for me for a few years, but as I met other fans I realized how much I had been wanting people to discuss the stories with and really dive deeper in.  As more adaptations like BBC Sherlock and the RDJ movie came out I realized that I had developed quite strong feelings about what elements of each worked or didn’t work for me. 

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

I’m now in my 20th year as an educator, and it absolutely affects my approach to being a Sherlockian. Sometimes it’s in somewhat silly ways—it’s not uncommon for me to use large chart paper when I’m doing a presentation or leading a discussion, and I’ve organized what I refer to as “field trips” to different exhibits or events.  On a deeper level, I’m sure it’s a large part of my fascination with what led to the Sherlock Holmes that we all know.  My work has mostly been with kindergarten through second grade students (and their teachers), but I’ve worked with students as young as three years old.  As a literacy coach, a fair amount of my current work is focused around how people learn to read in the literal sense of decoding words and understanding meaning. But also the way the mind works and how we process and retain information.  In some ways I do see Holmes as childlike in how he operates with the world—often driven by impulses, doing things for reasons that are clear to him (though not always others), and able to make connections that most of us don’t always pay attention to. 

I guess this is a good example of how working in an elementary school influences how I engage as a Sherlockian.  One of our other “field trip” Meetups was to the Whitney Museum.  We had about a dozen people attend, so I sent them around in teams for an hour with a few cards each, then we gathered together and each team showed us the artwork they decided was a match for their cards.

What is your favorite canonical story?

While sometimes my favorite may vary, I am unashamed of how cliché of an answer a story that is always amongst my top 5 or so is—"A Scandal in Bohemia." While it was not the first short story that I read, I think it’s absolutely brilliant as a way to introduce Holmes to the world.  He’s clearly so intelligent, but here he is out-smarted.  While part of why I love it is indeed for Irene Adler, an even larger art is because of the dramatic tension that it creates.  Most of the stories wouldn’t be as interesting if we didn’t have the idea in the back of our heads that this could be it—this might be the time that he really fails.     

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

There are pretty much no wrong answers here, but I’m going to say Jacquelynn Bost Morris. I first met her at one of the Scintillation of Scions events that she organized and have been lucky enough to get to know her better online.  I am in awe of how kind and empathetic she is, as well as how ready she is to step in and help anyone feel welcome.

What subset of Sherlockiana really interests you?

I am utterly charmed by the quirky subsets that one might not think necessary, but that absolutely add to the feeling of connectedness.  Queer Sherlockian groups are almost too obvious, since we of course bring our own identities to how we read the stories and characters.  So it’s some of the smaller groups, where people have decided “You know what?  Actually we need a group for Sherlockians who also_____” and just the ones I know of range from things like “love tea” and “smoke cigars” to “own tiaras” (or harpoons!) to “have dirty minds.”    

What is 221B NYC and how does it differ from more traditional Sherlockian societies?

221B NYC is a group originally organized on Meetup.com that formed in 2015.  While there are many wonderful scions and societies that meet in or near NYC there weren’t any that I was aware of that were very active with outings and tangential Sherlock Holmes experiences.  We’ve done things like visited a corn maze, met to solve some of the “Hunt a Killer” mystery boxes, escape rooms, tea tastings, board game nights, scavenger hunts, trips to movies and plays, and museum visits.  Once I realized how many people were becoming regulars with the group who hadn’t read any of the canon we started adding in more story discussions as well.  There is something absolutely delightful about helping people discover the stories for the first time—it actually wasn’t uncommon for one or two people to come to our discussions who still hadn’t read the short story, or only read as much as they had had time for on the train ride there.  It was so interesting to get such a fresh take on the stories or ask them what they thought might happen based on how far they had read and/or someone’s comment. 

I also like the whimsical nature of some of the events that we’ve had.  Sometimes members have said things like “I found the worst movie—we have to watch it!” Another activity that I particularly loved was the year that we met at a bar on May 4th and played with a giant Jenga set.  I’d taped a cutout of Holmes and Moriarty to one of the blocks that we set up on top.  After each turn moving a block there was a trivia question related to "The Final Problem." If the person answered correctly, it was just the one regular turn.  An incorrect response meant needing to place two Jenga blocks in a turn, thus being more likely to make Holmes fall.  Was it silly?  Absolutely! But it was also a lot of fun!

Many of our original regular attendees are no longer in NYC—some had started to move pre-pandemic, but many others left after 2020.  We haven’t been as active as we once were when it was common to have 2-3 events per month, but the group holds a special place in my heart and I’m always happy when we still have an event!

As a fan of the theater, you must have some strong opinions about adapting the Canon for the stage and screen.  What are some standout performances to you?

A problem I have often found with Canon being adapted for stage is the question of who the intended audience is.  Shows that are really focused on being accessible to people who haven’t read any of the stories often have to do too much world-building to effectively tell a story that is compelling to those of us already very familiar with Holmes.  Sometimes the solution has been to engage in very silly story telling, which hasn’t always worked for me.  Some ways that it has been more effective, in my opinion, include when it is blended with another element.  A Sherlock Carol played at New World Stages for a couple of years, and wove together Holmes and Watson with characters from A Christmas Carol. It was a festive, seasonal delight.

This may seem counterintuitive but one of the best experiences I’ve ever had with Holmes on stage wasn’t actually a play.  In 2015 Michael Chabon performed a dramatic reading of "The Final Problem" at Symphony Space.  It was such a lovely way to really focus on the original text, but with the added experience of the audience reactions to hearing the story.  (Additionally, I found it hilarious when he stayed late because his mother had sent him photos of some Holmes fanfiction she had found around her house that he’d written as a boy, and he wanted to read that aloud to us as well!  It was a very memorable night!)

What book would you recommend to other Sherlockians?

I’d recommend A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas.  Particularly with a lot of modern adaptations it’s easy to forget just how much certain factors—like Holmes’ gender really played a huge role in how he was able to behave.

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

I think we’re going to continue to see this interesting blend of the in-person events that are largely back as well as some of these wonderful online meetings that have helped connect worldwide Sherlockians.  The work that has been done to start digitizing back catalogues of Sherlockian publications seems like a really promising way to ensure that the scholarship sticks around!