WATCH: Caitlin Rother on Always Wanting to Tell the Truth

Authors in the Tent is a filmed series of interviews with established and emerging authors conducted in a tent Ona Russell purchased during the pandemic. Inspired by Boccaccio’s Decameron and the 1001 Arabian Nights, the tent—elemental, ancient, and ubiquitous—serves as a magical backdrop for literary conversation.

In the first episode of the second season, Ona Russell talks with Caitlin Rother about her latest book, Death on Ocean Boulevard: Inside the Coronado Mansion Case, the shift from investigative journalism to fiction writing, and not writing books you don’t want to read.

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This series is in support of the charities Tents-4-Homeless, PATH, Alpha Project, and VVSD.

Ona Russell holds a PhD in literature from UC San Diego where she also taught for many years. She is author of three award-winning historical mysteries and the recently released Son of Nothingness: A Novel of Appearances.

Caitlin Rother is a New York Times bestselling true crime author and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist. She worked for nearly two decades as an investigative reporter and has had work published in Cosmopolitan, The Los Angeles Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, among others. As a TV crime commentator, she has done more than 200 media appearances on episodes of 20/20, People Magazine Investigates, Crime Watch Daily, Australia’s World News, Nancy Grace, Snapped, and numerous shows on Netflix, Investigation Discovery, HLN, REELZ, Oxygen, E!, A&E, C-SPAN and various PBS affiliates. Rother also works as a writing/research coach and consultant, and plays piano and sings in an acoustic band.