Dr Randy Overbeck Interview — Abigail Trench & the Culper Ring

Dr. Randy Overbeck is back, and this time there's not a single ghost in the book. Abigail Trench is his first historical — a novel about the Culper Ring, George Washington's spy network in occupied New York, and specifically about Agent 355, the one woman in it whose identity nobody has ever established. He and Jo get into what the historical record actually contains (almost nothing), why he doesn't buy the standard theory about what happened to her, and how you write a British officer as a principled man instead of a villain. Then it turns into a working writers' conversation: three levels of feedback, a dozen beta readers, and the first chapter he rewrote fourteen times.Key Moments• 00:23 — A departure: mystery and suspense, but no paranormal this time• 01:51 — The Culper Ring explained — six men and one woman, and the secrecy that held• 02:21 — The sixth man's identity stayed hidden until the 1930s, 150 years on• 04:03 — Why the revolution belongs to people working in the shadows, not just the famous names• 05:25 — Agent 355, "the lady," and how little the record actually says• 06:43 — The prevailing theory about her fate, and why he thinks it doesn't hold up• 07:47 — Where the history stops and the fiction openly starts• 09:08 — Researching Red Shadows at Saugatuck and sitting down with tribal leaders• 11:15 — Two POVs: Abigail, and the British officer whose house she works in• 13:14 — Book two, Robert Townsend, and Major John André• 13:26 — Benedict Arnold was the war's most successful general before he wasn't• 15:03 — Why a British gentleman considered spying a notch above robbery• 15:51 — Handwriting analysis, decades later, unmasks Culper Jr.• 17:25 — The 1774 request Parliament refused, and the three years that made it moot• 20:55 — Diversion Books, Simon & Schuster, and the step up from small press• 21:41 — Seven novels in and still in a weekly writers group• 23:28 — Three levels of feedback before anyone sees a finished manuscript• 26:37 — Rewriting one first chapter fourteen times• 29:32 — Big publisher or not, you still promote it like an indieTakeawaySeven novels, a shelf of national awards, and Simon & Schuster on the spine — and he still hands unfinished chapters to a weekly group that includes a poet, a horror writer, and a sci-fi writer, because people outside your genre catch what you've stopped being able to see. Fourteen rewrites on a single first chapter. That's the job.Find Dr. Randy Overbeck• Website: https://www.authorrandyoverbeck.com• Podcast — Great Stories about Great Storytellers: available wherever you get podcasts• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorrandyoverbeck• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorrandyoverbeck/• X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/OverbeckRandy• BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/randy-overbeckRandy's Books• Abigail Trench: A Novel of Washington's Spy Ring (Diversion Books, dist. Simon & Schuster) — https://amzn.to/4fWMtVT• Book two in the Abigail cycle goes to the publisher shortly; audiobook of Abigail Trench is in productionAs an Amazon Associate, Empty Hell earns from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links costs you nothing extra and helps keep the show running.Everything Empty Hell: https://linktr.ee/Emptyhell