I’m so pleased to welcome Kerry McGee, co-founder of Literary Adventure Society. Kerry and her team produce immersive literary mystery boxes—like “Loveday Brooke in the Mystery of the Black Bag,” featured in the 2024 Cluesletter Holiday Catalogue. 👀
I invited Kerry for an interview because I was genuinely so interested in LAS and their boxes—I mean, how do you adapt, produce, and craft a mystery experience? In the interview to follow, Kerry shares their process, company history, and plenty more.
Connect with Kerry and Literary Adventure Society on Instagram, TikTok, and their website. Plus, keep a keen eye out for “Loveday Brooke in the Mystery of the Black Bag” in the 2024 Cluesletter Holiday Catalogue! (Link here!)
Kerry, thanks so much for joining the Cluesletter! Literary Adventure Society (LAS) was founded in 2020—can you share a bit of backstory to you and to this endeavor? How, and why, did you start the company?
In addition to being an owner at LAS, I’m also the Artistic Director of a classical theatre company (We Happy Few Productions). I’d written two mystery play adaptations that we were going to produce in rep in the fall of 2020, but then the COVID pandemic hit and all the theaters closed. Our company was still interested in making art together, and we were interested in creating at-home entertainment that could rival a night out at the theatre. So, we created our experience boxes: a fully produced audio play that came with elements to set the scene at home. We encouraged people to gather with their family and/or pods and share a night-in at the theatre. They were a huge success, and we continued to expand and refine the boxes. When live theatre returned, I helped launch Literary Adventure Society as a new home for our at-home mysteries.
While still very theatrical, we’ve worked hard to heighten the immersive and play-along aspects as well. The whole idea is to feel like you’ve stepped into the book or story: you can set the scene, follow the story-line, interact with objects that the detectives do, and try your hand at solving the crime.
Your boxes feature Sherlock Holmes and Loveday Brooke, both nineteenth century literary detectives. How do you incorporate these characters and their famous mysteries into your experiences? (I’m of course most curious about Loveday Brooke, created by Catherine Louisa Pirkis in 1893. Why Loveday—how did you discover her, and what do you love about her as a character?)
Loveday Brooke is probably one of the coolest detectives out there. She is considered to be one of (if not THE) first female detective written by a woman author in 1893. Which means that she is a huge part of the development of the mystery novel, and yet so few of us have ever heard of her. My husband found an article about early lady detectives and sent it to me. I read all the stories I could find, and Loveday was my favorite. Even among her contemporaries, Loveday was singular: she was a detective by trade, not as a hobby. It was a way to support herself and she was good at it. Which put her way ahead of her time in 1893. So many people have told me that after playing our Loveday Brooke box, they’ve gone on to read her original stories. I’m so excited that our mysteries are a gateway for people to explore literature!
I’ve had a lot of fun adapting Loveday and Sherlock stories for our mystery experiences. These stories predated the fair play rules that the Golden Age of Mystery set forth, so I’ve gotten to think backwards, working clues in earlier than they appear in the original stories. Additionally, I’ve wanted the physical clues to be integral to the mystery-solving—so sometimes I have to find different avenues for our literary detectives to get to their conclusions, all while still keeping as much of the original story intact as possible. It’s a really fun writing challenge.
Each box includes clues, souvenirs, world-building elements, and goodies like a candle and loose-leaf tea, all accompanied by a professionally-acted audio mystery. How do you decide what to include in the box? What’s involved in the creation process?
We wanted to use all five senses to transport someone into the story. The audio play provided the narrative and the ambient sounds of the world. The candle scent brings you into the environment (the Sherlock candle scent is leather and tobacco—we wanted it to smell like 221B!), the tea and drink recipes appeal to the sense of taste, and the clues and newspapers provide visual and tactile clues. Everything is designed to be either a clue or something to aid in the world-building aspect of these boxes.
Plus we wanted to include a souvenir or two to remember the experience. I think about when I finish a book that I love: I want to find a way to keep it alive for a little bit longer. We thought even after the mystery was done, someone could still light the candle or frame the postcard, and linger for a little bit longer in the world of the story.
I absolutely love the collaborative nature of these experiences. What do you love about solving mysteries as a group activity? What do you hope audiences get out of the experience?
I’m very interested in activities and forms of entertainment that bring people together. I love theatre, but more often than not, you spend your evening sitting in a dark room. Despite other people being there, it’s still a very solitary experience. I wanted people to be able to talk with each other, and theorize, and comment, and collaborate, and gossip, and catch up with each other: all while also still being entertained. And it was really important to find a mostly-analog way to do that too. I love screens as much as anyone else, but it’s really nice to take a break from them. I’ve talked to people who have hosted mystery nights with their friends and had a blast, and people that have done these with their kids and grandparents. I love the idea that our mystery boxes are bringing people and families together in a shared experience.
Lastly, are you working on anything exciting for Literary Adventure Society? What are you currently looking forward to?
I have so much in development! My husband and I are creating a live Sherlock mystery experience that we can perform with a crowd. He does the voice of Sherlock for our audio plays and will play the detective in our live event. We have one coming up in Washington, DC on November 22 [link here!]. I’m creating outlines as we speak for a new Loveday and Sherlock mystery, and I’m hot on the trail of another almost-forgotten detective that I want to create a mystery experience for. It’s a dream to be able to spend so much of my time rooting around in the world of mystery and detective fiction.
Thanks so much to Kerry for the interview. Sleuths, I hope you enjoyed it! If you aren’t already subscribed, please be sure to sign up for the Cluesletter and get author features like this alongside other mystery goodies, delivered to your inbox every other Tuesday.