Shelley Marsh, author of Up the Creek, a Florida Eco-mystery, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to share with us how she discovered the setting for her novel
Welcome, Shelley. I’ll turn the floor over to you –
Authors are often asked, “Where do you get ideas?”
Ideas may come from a news story, an overheard conversation (authors are notorious eavesdroppers), or even a dream. I’m a mystery writer, and mystery writers spend a lot of time thinking about murder. Sometimes, a story idea starts from an interesting poison (my next book, Planted Evidence, falls into that category).
My latest book, Up the Creek, started with a scenario in my mind: a kayaker finding a body in the marsh. So, it made sense to start writing this story on the water.
A scenic twenty-minute drive from my home, there is a beautiful natural area called the Guana Tolmato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve. (Locals just call it “Guana.”)
Over the years, I’d chaperoned field trips there with both of my kids.
When I got the idea to write a book about a kayaker, I decided to do some outdoor writing. Visual artists who create art outdoors while observing nature call it “painting en plein air.” I wanted to apply the same principle to my writing.
I drove down A1A to the Guana Reserve and set up my laptop on a picnic table overlooking the estuary. I sat, absorbed the natural beauty, and started writing descriptions of what I saw. I observed the water glistening, the cordgrass swaying in the breeze, and the oyster beds jutting from the mud. Being there helped me bring all my senses into the writing: the screech of an eagle’s call, the angle of the sunlight on the water, the fecund smell of the marshes, the feel of the breeze on my face.
I sat near the dock behind the visitors center and typed on my computer while a row of pelicans eyed me curiously. A startlingly pink spoonbill swooped past. I typed what I observed. In that spot, I invented a group of birdwatchers for the book and dubbed them “The Birdy Bunch.” They’re serious birdwatchers with expensive binoculars who don’t like disturbances when they are out on the water observing nature. In my mind’s eye, they rowed right past the pelicans, searching for more exotic waterfowl.
I watched a great blue heron stalking fish at the edge of the water. It was so patient, holding a striking posture for so long, barely moving. I thought it might make the perfect metaphor for the lesson my main character, Amanda, needed to learn. She needed to be patient, waiting for the perfect moment to make her move.
That was October 2022. The paperback of Up the Creek came out four years later. Some of my original observations and descriptions made it into the manuscript, while others helped flesh out the fictional environment that would form my characters.
When I decided my main character would be a female scientist, I knew I had a lot of research to do. While I could do much of that research online, it made sense to learn on site, too, since I had this wonderful resource at Guana, where scientists and educators work alongside rangers and volunteers. A research scientist at GTM even agreed to review parts of my manuscript to help me get the science right.
When an educational opportunity came to my attention, I jumped at it. The Guy Harvey Foundation launched its inaugural conservation educator certification program at Guana in spring 2024, and I was in the first cohort. I became a certified Guy Harvey educator. But who was I going to educate? Dozens of schools visit Guana every year for field trips, so I decided to volunteer with the education department at GTM Reserve.
It was a pivotal moment in my life. My youngest had just left for college, and I was feeling at a loss. My first assignment as an education volunteer was helping out with a group of sixth graders with a program called Wildlife Explorers. During a phone call with my son that evening, I told him I’d chaperoned someone else’s field trip that day. He thought I was losing it.
I was losing it, a little bit. I was an empty nester, wondering what I would do with this next phase of my life. What would my purpose be?
I started trying all kinds of assignments. I learned how to measure oysters (I wasn’t very good at it—oysters are very irregular!) and how to handle terrapins and baby alligators (the gators were my favorite!). I observed seining and water-monitoring procedures, examined water samples under microscopes, and learned how to identify phytoplankton. I volunteered for the hospitality team during the annual State of the Reserve event, sneaking into the back of the auditorium to listen to the scientists between serving canapés. I even helped decorate the trail for a haunted trail event called Estuscary. In short, I got hooked.
Volunteering at Guana didn’t just inspire my next book; it gave me that sense of purpose. By then, my research had moved beyond shaping my next story—it had reshaped me.
Thank you for sharing this with us, Shelley, and good luck with Up the Creek, a Florida Eco-mystery. Readers can learn more about Shelley Marsh by visiting the author’s Facebook, TikTok and Instagram pages. You can also follow her on BlueSky, Threads and Twitter/X.
The book is available online at Amazon
About Shelley Marsh: Shelley is the author of the Estate Sale Mysteries, including Dying to Live Here, More Than She Bargained For, and Everything Must Go. She writes character-driven mysteries set along Florida’s coast, where community ties, hidden motives, and shifting loyalties shape the story. With Up the Creek, she expands into eco-mystery, blending environmental conflict with political intrigue and emotional stakes. When she’s not writing, she can often be found exploring the beaches and marshlands that inspire her fiction. She lives and writes in coastal North Florida.
