Kate Racculia's "Bellweather Rhapsody," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia.

The entry begins:

I love movies. They’re a part of how I learned to see the world and to tell stories. I gravitate toward vivid visual and auditory elements in my writing, and I always thought of Bellweather Rhapsody in cinematic terms. It’s a murder mystery-musical in novel form, about music and musicians, and there are orchestral performances, dance numbers and solos.

And characters that I think actors—male and female, old and young—would have a blast bringing to life, starting with the crumbling, possibly haunted Hotel Bellweather itself, which is The Shining’s Overlook by way of the Catskills (think of the set design!). Teenage twins Alice and Bert “Rabbit” Hatmaker come to the Bellweather for Statewide, a weekend conference for student musicians. Alice, a singer, is a diva in her own mind, and Rabbit, who plays bassoon, is painfully shy. I’d cast unknowns with genuine musical talent, like the kids in School of Rock. Their chaperone is their small town band director, Natalie Wink Wilson: a woman with a past, a self-destructive streak, and a .38 in her luggage. She’s a redhead with a dark wit—think Winona Ryder in Heathers with a dash of Dana Scully—and I imagined someone playing against type in the role, an Alyson Hannigan or Emma...[read on]

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My Book, The Movie: Bellweather Rhapsody.

--Marshal Zeringue