By the River is brought to you in part by The University of South Carolina Beaufort.

Learning in action discovered.

Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, strengthening community.

OSHER Lifelong Learning Institute at U S C B.

The Pat Conroy Literary Center.

Artistic Flower Shop.

While growing up Dana Ridenour's father instilled in her a love of law enforcement and her mother planted in her I love reading.

Setting her up to become an award winning author.

Her F. B. I. and life experiences gave the inspiration for the Lexi Montgomery series.

Dana Ridenour's most recent novel below the radar, Continues to follow Lexi Montgomery, as she is forced to prove herself to everyone.

I'm Holly Jackson, join us as we bring you powerful stories from both new and established southern authors as we sit by the river.

♪ It's another beautiful day here in our low country studio set here in Beaufort, South Carolina.

Thanks so much for joining us.

You're watching season three of By the River.

I'm your host Holly Jackson.

We're doing things a little differently this season.

You know as you're watching TV.

Things might look differently to you on many of the programs.

That we are social distancing as much as we can and following all the protocols we can.

We wanted to make sure that we brought you this show this year.

The easy thing would have been said Hey we'll just do it again next year, but we wanted to bring it to you because we know so many of you are turning to books.

During this time whenever many of us are stuck at home or at home more than we usually are.

All right let's get right to it and thank you Dana Ridenhour for joining us and can't wait to hear all about it.

I promised myself that we're going to talk books and not just your life.

Because I know that is so exciting.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and why that makes the books is so interesting.

Well thank you for having me Holly.

I was an FBI agent for almost twenty one years and out of the twenty one years I spent thirteen years working some type of undercover work.

I was in an undercover unit during that time.

So my real life experience has led to the books.

So whatever the case is that I worked while I was working under cover.

The books are fiction but they are based on real cases and real people and of course Lexi Montgomery is my hero in the book.

She's my FBI agent and she's a young female FBI agent working her first mission in the first book and she learns and develops from the first book on into her other cases so.

At what point during the career did you say I've got to write some books on this?

Well I never really thought I would write books towards the end of my career my mother was the one that was encouraging the journals and to write.

Now my mom and I were both readers and we've always been reader she's always instilled the love of reading.

But she never really talked much about writing into the end of my career and she kept saying you need to write this stuff down this is great.

Because I would go back and tell their stories I usually pick the funny stuff and the things that wouldn't upset her.

But I would tell the stories and she said that would be just great in a book you need to write this stuff down and like everybody you know I did not listen to my mother at first.

Right.

I ended up thinking well you know what she might be right and so I started keeping journals and it was mostly journals about their thoughts and emotions that was experiencing as an undercover agent because it's a very lonely thing to do.

People think it's all Hollywood but it's actually very lonely time.

So I was writing that kind of stuff down and those journals actually led to the character of Lexi Montgomery and most of how Lexi reacts.

So the reactions and some of the stuff she does reveals and says are straight out of the journals.

Tell us a little bit about Lexy and why readers grow so fond of her.

Lexi I thought there would just be one book I had no idea I would get so attached to her, but Lexi is I guess kind of my younger alter egos who is speaking she was very naive in the first book.

She was young idealistic FBI agent like all of us at one point in our career.

She does believe there was a black and white and she quickly found out there were shades of gray and everything that you do.

So the first book she's only young little naive gets she gets her chops a little bit and she goes into the second book.

But like for like the undercover program in real life an undercover agent can be moved all over and that's what made it so much fun to have Lexie.

Because I didn't have to leave or in California with first book was at.

In fact the second book set in the low country.

The third book is actually set over seas.

So Lexi grows and matures as the books move along.

Have you gotten atached to Lexi that you don't want her, or do you want her to keep going?

I do, I can't say, I can't can't, just can't say goodbye to her.

I love the character.

I like some of the the secondary characters in the books too.

So a lot of them have kind of followed along with her throughout the books so one of the Lowcountry characters that was actually in the first book pops up in the second book and then some of the books characters from the first book should pop up in the third book I tried to write them as stand alones, but the characters just keep following me around.

Talk about the the real life job and the relationships that you form with those people and the betrayal and then how you incorporate that in your books.

We build relationships to betray relationships.

That's the motto of the undercover unit and that's real life.

When you're working under cover you're trying to get close to people and you're building those relationships.

Knowing in the back of your mind it's you're going to betray these relationships, and I don't care which way you slice it the trails an ugly word.

Whether you're doing it for the right reasons like I was doing it.

It's it's still a hard thing for anybody to overcome.

So you build those relationships and you get close to people and you can't help but to feel close to some of these people in real life.

you can say you're playing a part, but and inevitably it happens.

You're going to find that one person that you relate to and and you spend so much time with them and you got to remember when I was working under cover for, the these books are based on.

I was doing twenty four seven long term deep cover.

I spent years with the extremist and so I spent time with all the bad guys and I wasn't spending time with my family wasn't spending time in the F. B. I. office, I wasn't spending time with agents.

Twenty four seven I was emerged in this world.

So this was my world and these are my people and these were my friends and ultimately these are my targets.

Well I talking about that betrayal.

Does some of that still tug at you and bother you?

You're trained to let it go, but it.

Well it's kind of funny because since I retired and that the books came out.

I've got some hate mail and things from people that were in the movement and I would be lying if I said it didn't hurt my feelings.

I don't I'm kind of an emotional person, so it does hurt my feelings when somebody you know writes me letters and basically says you know that I betrayed 'em.

I mean the truth is I did.

Right right.

It's still hard.

Sure sure, lets shift gears here and talk a little bit about the quarantine.

How has that impacted you as a writer have you have you written more or less differently?

Definitely written differently, less I, I think it was the structure.

When when I was writing the novels.

I was writing probably six days a week.

Every single day I was doing something related to writing.

I was either writing or was going to book clubs here is doing book signings or I was teaching at writers conferences every single day.

Had something on the calendar and then one day my calendar was completely empty, and I had nothing and I don't think I knew how to handle that.

Because I retired from the FBI and launched the first book, and a lot of people don't know that, but I went from one career straight smack into a book tour.

With the second full time career.

Well.

So since I was young I've never had down time and I don't know what to do with myself.

I really didn't.

I was walking around like a zombie in the house trying to figure out what to do.

So I resorted to fishing and then fishing consume my life and it wasn't until just recently.

Where I've started getting a little bit more structure into my schedule that I've started writing again.

That's the only thing that I can blame it on because it wasn't writer's block.

I knew what I needed to write I just couldn't sit there and write it.

So writing with the goals of the book began later in life.

What's your writing process is it sitting down in the morning with a computer or do you bring out a paper and pad?

Okay so I guess that's kind of funny story because Pat Conroy is one of my idols and I read one to place where he had written everything on legal tablets.

So when I first started writing behind the mask.

I went out and bought a big stack of legal tablets.

I was gonna to do it like Pat Conroy.

Right.

Well I started writing I couldn't read my own handwriting.

It was terrible I just couldn't I really couldn't.

I was writing too fast and so I decided I wasn't a legal pad person.

So I bought a laptop computer and I, I like to call myself a backtracker.

What I do is I sit down every day to write and I write what I want write and I put it away, and the next day I get out what I'd written the day before.

Go back through it do a few edits and then continue on, and a lot of people I mean people do it differently.

A lot of people say oh you should just put put everything down in the first draft and don't go back.

But to me when I'm writing it's like I'm seeing a movie in my head.

I see everything unfold.

I see my character to see my scene.

so when I go back what I written the day before it puts me back into the scene and it frees me up to be able to continue on.

So I don't know if that's an official term but that's my term.

I'm backtracker.

I like that, okay so it's also a lot of southern authors who have kind of this tight knit group of of friends or although, also authors here maybe critique their work or say I think you're going the wrong way or whatever.

Yours is a little different because this is based on a work that you did before and not many can relate to.

Do you have those people you lean on?

I don't have critique partners.

I have found in the past that I've tried to do that and it didn't work for me.

Because of that, because people will look at that and they'll say well it doesn't happen like this.

I mean I've had people tell me the with the third book on what the FBI doesn't work overseas.

I'm like that's based on a real case.

I as working overseas, and that it doesn't work for me to have critique partner really doesn't.

I don't think it would even work with another thriller writer because and we fight over FBI procedures.

Because I've tried to keep the books realistic when it comes to F. B. I. procedures and that's the one thing everybody wants change.

So I don't work with critique groups, but I do have a real good group of friends that I met, mostly I've met them through the Pat Conroy Center and we've become very close and there there's somebody I can call and say I'm having a bad day.

I can't get this flow.

I don't know you know which way to go and usually it's like well just like have a Cup of coffee, you know and golook at the marsh and or it's somebody is as well let's just meet for coffee and, Go reset sometimes.

Yeah yeah so I do have a good support system but it's not really critique partner.

Who can you talk a little bit about the the hate mail and you know from those who may have been betrayed or felt they were.

What about your former colleagues how they taken to this?

Most have been very supportive, and they've enjoyed the books said they they go through and look for themselves in the books.

I'm very careful not to use real people and real names as far as you know making the agents, with the agents I did have a couple of friends that guys of course that said Hey put me in your book make me hot F. B. I. agent.

I made the mistake of actually doing that for like a couple of secondary characters and using their real names and the F. B. I. reviews everything I write.

I'm not allowed to publish anything without their pre published approval, and they caught the names and they were like this you know this is not going to be all right.

Yeah so that kind of got me in trouble.

Well tell me how that process goes, have have they changed You're work in ways that.

Did Y'all go at it about that?

No actually I have to admit it was very easy with the first book.

I sent it in about forty five days later I received a letter that asked me to change one sentence in the whole book.

Wow.

Well so I said okay I can do that if that makes you happy to change that one sentence it was just one little tiny thing they thought was too close to trade craft secret.

Okay.

I'm very careful when I write the book of not giving up tradecraft secrets.

Everything in the book you've probably seen on television a hundred times maybe.

So I don't I don't use any real techniques that I know are secret.

I'd like to sometimes.

The second book they didn't change anything at all and in fact the third don't they didn't either so no there was there were no changes other than when I got caught with the names and change that.

Well I'm imagine this is one of those careers that is just kind of hard to walk away.

I mean it's like you live and breathe that is your life, right?

Is this kind of your way of just you're still hanging on?

A little bit I think.

When I retired, I didn't have the desire to walk back into the office.

I was ready.

I just some people are are hang on it and we always always thought they were kind of pathetic those people into the F. B. I. office long after they're retired wanting to go to lunch with the agents and I thought I never want to be one of those people, and I don't think I had the desire to walk back in to be an agent again.

But this was kind of a way of sharing with the world something that was it was near and dear to my heart which was undercover work.

Because out of all the years that I worked for the bureau.

The undercover work was my my my calling, that's what I was good at, is what I enjoy the most and I don't think there's really any books out there that truly show the psychological and emotional toll that working under cover has an agent.

Not realistically anyway.

So I wanted to I wanted that to come across the books and I wanted to kind of put something out there that was real.

You said that the quarantines have slowed you down.

Not even kinda that has.

When it comes to writing you got a fishing pole or are you do you think you might just go a different direction in your writing or you gonna take a pause?

What do you think?

Well I'm going a different direction with the fourth book.

The fourth book is not an F. B. I. book at least not a Lexi book.

I'm not going to say they're not going back to her because I can't leave her for too long unattended.

She might get in trouble.

So I'll go back to the Lexi books I think and I also have an idea for another undercover series I'd like to do.

Or another FBI series it's not an undercover series.

But my fourth book is complete, a complete departure.

That's a women's fiction and having a great time with it.

When I do sit down to write I just sit there and crack myself up I hope it's as funny as I think it is.

So I'm I'm taking a bill departure because I felt like it was time to leave the F. B. I. behind for just a little bit, and I just, this story has been in the back of my mind probably before any of these books ever hit and I just want to write it, so.

Let's briefly talk about your husband, and how your meeting came to be and how he plays a role in the books too.

He he and I met when we were all stationed in St. Croix, and we were dating.

We thought we were been secret but that didn't happen.

Everybody on the island knew.

There we were dating and I got called to go back to California to do another under cover, and I had I just I didn't wanna leave him, because for the first time in my career I felt like this relationship is going someplace and I could see Marrige on the horizon.

I didn't wanna lose something good.

So I asked him I said how would you feel about doing an under cover?

And he goes what do you mean?

I said well you have to move to California and be a vegan getting kind of live in a commune how does that attrack you?

And he's like okay great.

I thought he would be No way you're crazy I'm not doing that.

No he was all up for the adventure.

He said that sounds like fun.

So then we had to sell it to the FBI and we went to them and we said you know we'd like to work this case together.

Both be transferred out there and they were like you're crazy.

I'm romantically involved couple working twenty four seven you will kill each other.

So we talked them into it though, and we worked together full time under cover and in fact the third book finally a male FBI agent pops up into the books, and that character is based on my husband.

So he can make it through that, then you can make it.

Well he tells everybody that anything good about Blake is below the radar is all him and if it's bad it's that's fiction part of the novel it was little bit.

You know by the river we incorporate a lot of university University of South Carolina students.

They're working behind the scenes, they are doing a lot of research and typically the running cameras but this year we're doing a little differently.

But I always like for authors to just give them a little bit of advice and I think that you can really do that and that I mean we didn't get into the whole working on the boat job that you had done.

You've done much and now switching to writing.

There in the point where they're saying which way to go what what do you many of them starting to enter what we call the real world.

So what what kind of advice would you give them?

Well if they wanna be writers, I know it sounds simple but I would say write write write, and read read read.

Write something every day.

Even if it's just a journal entry or if it's short story.

Even if you don't plan on that novel, just write something every day and read, and read good books.

I mean I don't think you have to read in your genre, because really I mean I write thrillers but I mostly read women's fiction.

But I think you have to read well written books.

So I think if you write every day you read every day.

That's the first step and then just not people, don't let anybody tell you that you can't do it and no it's not gonna be an overnight endeavor.

Especially if you you intend to be a writer.

That's a lot of years of struggling and up hill climbs does sometimes get what you need to be, and I think a lot of people don't realize it and think oh I'm gonna write a novel and it's going to be number one one The New York Times list, I'm gonna get rich.

They're gonna make a movie out of it.

So from start to finish but one of the how long would you say that took you?

Book one because I was still working was three years.

Okay.

Book two was the easiest thing because it was set in the low country and I think my heart is in the low country.

That one I really I was finished from start to finish in eighteen months, and quick and the third one it took me two years.

From start to finish.

So it's not an overnight adventure by any means it's a, it's a long grueling process.

It's a lot of rewrites and rough drafts and not remembering which draft looked at.

Right well retirement certainly hasn't slowed you down.

No, no no.

I think I have sometimes I do feel like I'm busier well before COVID anyway.

Right I felt like I was busier with the second career, than I ever was as an agent.

Well its really been a pleasure to talk to you.

Thank you so much for stopping by here.

At our set in Beaufort South Carolina and everyone we're gonna to leave you now with a look at our poets corner.

I want to say thanks for joining us for By The River.

We love having you on board here.

You're watching season three we talked today with Dana Ridenour you're watching By The River.

♪ Meditation on the Jellyfish.

Heaved on shore sea debris.

They could be transparent satchels, tiny spaceships.

The after births or ghost congealed on sand.

Too many to count and still fresh like the tops of toad stools connected dot to dot.

glory in their alien strangeness.

Fogged convex mirrors that need a hhh hard breath and a wipe or headlights or interior of the heart.

Where unstrung prayer beads dropped, a bead here a bead there, there and there.

Terry McCord.

Meditation on the Jellyfish.

Heaved on shore sea debris, they could be transparent satchels, tiny spaceships the after births or ghost congealed on sand, too many to count and still fresh like the tops of toad stools, connected dot to dot, glory in their aliens strangeness fobed convex mirrors that need a hhh hard breath and a wipe, or headlights or interior of the heart, or unstrung prayer beads, dropped a bead here a bead there there and there.

♪ (Anna Matson) The Tables Turned by William Wordsworth.

Up!

up!

my friend and quit your books or surely you'll grow double.

Up!

up!

my friend and clear your looks why all this toil and trouble, The sun above the mountains head a freshening Lustre mellow through all the long green fields to spread, his first sweet evening yellow.

Books!

tis a dull and endless strife, Come hear the woodland linnet, how sweet his music!

on my life, there's more of wisdom in it.

And hark how blithe the Throssell sings, he too is no mean preacher, come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.

she has a world of ready wealth, our minds and hearts to bless spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, truth breathed by cheerfulness.

one impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more of man, of moral evil and of good, than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which nature brings, our meddling intellect mis- shapes the beauteous forms of things, we murder to dissect.

enough of science and of art, close up those barren leaves, come forth and bring with you a heart, that watches and receives.

Briars tore at her flesh, as she stumbled through the thick South Carolina swamp brush, the harsh vegetation cutting into our exposed skin, with every new step movement sweat covered her body, stinging her eyes and open wounds, blurring her vision, her breath came harsh, and ragged lungs ready to explode, despite her weakened state adrenaline and fear kept Lexi moving.

She hopes she was moving in the right direction.

Hadn't been unconscious when she was taken to the cabin.

Lexie ran through the Lowcountry swaps.

Trying to avoid the mass of low lying cypress stumps and fallen dead logs.

Her visibility was no more than twenty feet because of thick summer growth.

A quick left turn put her on a dirt path.

Which way which way one led to freedom and the other led back to her captor.

♪ By the River is brought to you in part by the University of South Carolina Beaufort.

Learning in action discovered.

Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, strengthening community.

OSHER Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB.

The Pat Conroy's Literary Center.

Artistic Flower Shop.