Brandy Schillace

Brandy Lain Schillace (born 1977 or 1978) is an American author, historian, and television host. She is the author of the books Death's Summer Coat (2016), Mr Humble & Doctor Butcher (2021), The Intermediaries (2025), and a series of cozy mystery novels about autistic amateur detective Jo Jones that began with The Framed Women of Ardemore House (2024) and The Dead Come to Stay (2025).

Early life and education

Schillace was born in 1977 or 1978, in Akron, and largely grew up in an underground house near an abandoned coal mine in Coshocton County. She earned an English degree from Wittenberg University and later a doctorate in English from Case Western Reserve University.

Career

From 2014 to 2018, Schillace was the senior research associate of the Dittrick Medical Museum, in Cleveland.

She is the founder and main host of the Peculiar Book Club (2020), a podcast that has featured guests such as Mary Roach, Lindsay Fitzharris, Riley Black, and Haley Campbell, with regular music guests Charming Disaster.

Her first book, Death's Summer Coat (2016) was a survey of world grief and funeral rituals. It was praised as a 'surprisingly easy reading on a usually dark topic' by Kirkus Reviews. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the book received renewed attention, and Schillace was cited or interviewed by numerous publications seeking historical context for the psychological toll of the pandemic.

In 2021, Schillace's biography of surgical pioneer Robert J. White, who conducted experiments to transplant human heads, Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher, was published. It was praised by The New York Times for being 'delightfully macabre' with Publishers' Weekly concluding 'Schillace explains the medical nuances of White's surgeries without too much gruesome detail, and her lyrical prose and psychological insights keep the pages turning'.

The Washington Post noted that her debut novel The Framed Women of Ardemore House (2024) was one of a number of recent mystery novels to "push back against old stereotypes about life on the spectrum", along with the work of Nita Prose and Brendan Slocomb.

Schillace expanded a 2021 article for The Atlantic, "The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic", to become a book-length history of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, The Intermediaries (2025).

Schillace is the editor of Medical Humanities, and has written for publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, and New Scientist.

Schillace has appeared as a guest expert on a number of television shows, including Travel Channel's Mysteries at the Museum, NPR's Here and Now, and The Unbelievable with Dan Aykroyd.

Schillace is a 2018 winner of the Arthur P. Sloan Science Foundation award, and the 2024 recipient of The Royden B. Davis, S. J., Distinguished Author Award.

Personal life

Schillace is autistic, and non-binary. She lives in Cleveland.

Bibliography

• Death's Summer Coat (2016) (Pegasus) 978-1681773247
• Clockwork Futures: The Science of Steampunk and the Reinvention of the Modern World (2017) (Pegasus) 978-1681775180
• Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey's Head, the Pope's Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul (2021) (Simon & Schuster)  978-1982113773
• The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story (2025) (W W Norton)  978-1324036319
• The Framed Women of Ardemore House (2024) (Hanover Square) 978-1335014030
• The Dead Come to Stay (2025) (Hanover Square) 978-1335121875