Dr. BRANDY SCHILLACE (skil-AH-chay) PhD is a historian, novelist, and television show host. Formerly an editor for two journals, Brandy works as a freelance journalist as well as a writer of nonfiction and fiction. Brandy has written about death and dying, Cold War medicine, bioethics, and organ transplant and the history of accidents. Her most recent book, THE INTERMEDIARIES (2025), tells the forgotten, daring history of trans activists, gender affirming surgeries, and the fight for LGBTQ rights in the shadow of the Third Reich. It was Longlisted for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and a Kirkus Reviews and Boston Globe Best Book of the Year. She also writes and serves as the voice talent for Audible, with true-crime How to Catch a Killer and These Six Things Will Kill You.
“Brandy Schillace is a first-rate medical historian with a novelist’s soul. . . . The Intermediaries is a slam dunk.” –Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
“Drawing on abundant primary sources, medical historian Schillace, editor of the journal Medical Humanities, vividly depicts the maelstrom of race, politics, and scientific discovery that shaped attitudes about gender identity from 1890 to 1933 in Weimar, Germany. . . . Hysteria about gender identity, Schillace warns, has never abated; the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights continues. . . . A richly detailed, prodigiously researched history.” –Kirkus (starred review)
In fiction, Brandy is author of THE FRAMED WOMEN OF ARDEMORE HOUSE (2024), and THE DEAD COME TO STAY (2025), the first two novels in a mystery series featuring a neurodivergent protagonist. Both novels have been highly praised in featured reviews, and her first won the 2024 Royden B Davis Distinguished Author Award, a bi-annual prize.
“The book is more than just a mystery: It’s an autistic woman’s journey of self-discovery.” –THE WASHINGTON POST
“A whopper likely to fool readers for as long as it fools the endearing detectives… a superior puzzle.” –KIRKUS
“It’s a delight to spend quality time with the more-than-capable Josephine Jones.” –THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
“The intricate plot and memorable local characters here are a delight.” –BOOKLIST
“Schillace, who’s autistic herself, draws a marvelously believable heroine in Jo, and sets her up with an expertly constructed mystery. Readers will be hungry for a sequel.” –PUBLISHERS WEEKLY“Twisty, engaging, and thoroughly unexpected, The Framed Women of Ardemore House is a must-read for any mystery lover. Featuring a unique cast of characters and a village full of dirty little secrets, this book delivers a fresh take on the English cozy.”
– DEANNA RAYBOURN, New York Times bestselling author of KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE
“The Framed Women of Ardemore House kept me awake, reading and guessing and anxiously turning pages all night. This book is intricately plotted and thematically rich; it’s frightening, funny, and fast-paced, with characters I grew to really care about. I’ll be recommending it to every mystery reader I know.”
–ALEX GRECIAN, New York Times bestselling author of THE YARD
“A classic murder mystery, an amateur sleuth like no other; Josephine Jones will change the way you look at the world.”
– STEPHEN GALLAGHER, author of THE BEDLAM DETECTIVE and writer for BBC’S DOCTOR WHO
Brandy has bylines at WSJ, Scientific American, Globe and Mail, HuffPo, WIRED, and UNDARK. She is host of Unsolved Mysteries of Medicine (2025) and the popular YouTube livestream, Peculiar Book Club, featuring bestselling authors of unusual nonfiction, from Lindsey Fitzharris and Mary Roach to Ed Yong and Deborah Blum. She has appeared on Mysteries at the Museum with Don Wildman, The Unbelievable with Dan Akroyd, Secrets Declassified with David Duchovny, and Histories Greatest Mysteries with Laurence Fishburne. Brandy gives regular keynotes and participates in other speaking events, and is a tireless advocate for social justice, disability and LGBTQ+ representation.