3 sisters from Lititz, including 'Radium Girls' playwright, have noteworthy writing careers

If someone were to pen a play about three sisters who share both the maiden name Whiskeyman and the distinction of being published writers, a flashback to an old attic bedroom in Lititz might make a great opening scene.

Riley Kilmore, the youngest of nine siblings, recalls being up there with her Toucan Sam toy – a Christmas present from her oldest sister, Kathleen, who saved cereal box tops to get it. Another sister, Delores, had a sock monkey and an affinity for the classics.

"She, at the tender age of like 10 or so, knew Shakespeare," Kilmore says. "So, she taught me some Shakespeare monologues. I remember Toucan Sam being Juliet and the sock monkey was Romeo."

Fast forward a few decades, and a later act might be set at the modern-day Lititz Public Library, where the aforementioned sisters met up on Nov. 2.

Kilmore (who her siblings typically call PJ) and K.M. King (that's K for Kathleen) were there participating in an author event. Kilmore's middle grades fantasy novel, "Shay the Brave," was released in January. And King's debut novel, "The Bomber Jacket," hit shelves in August.

Also at the library was playwright D.W. Gregory (that's D for Delores). She lives in West Virginia and stayed the night in Lititz because she had to be in Reading for a run-through of her latest creation to hit the stage. Gregory is perhaps best known for "Radium Girls," a play that's been performed in more than 1,800 productions in the United States and abroad.

"I've always wondered if there's a writing gene," Kilmore says.

READ: Theater for holidays: 'Frozen,' 'White Christmas,' more opening on Lancaster County stages in November

Love of literature

The general consensus among the sisters is that if their success does come in part from nature, it is also due to a large dose of nurture. That attic bedroom, and the rest of the home below, was filled with well-used reading material.

The sisters' father, an Armstrong shift worker who also farmed for about 10 years, read the newspaper religiously. Their mother – who met her Lancaster County-raised husband in Ohio when he was there serving as a military recruiter – read anything and everything she could. She subscribed to options like Reader's Digest condensed volumes and magazines like National Geographic.

"She created a world, an environment, where we were all very into reading and literature," Gregory says. "I think that was part of what led to it."

A home library was particularly important during the years spent living on the farm near Manheim, King says. Their father took the family's only car to work at Armstrong, so visiting a library wasn't often feasible.

"We moved to Lititz when I was almost 12, and I was thrilled to be living in a town that had a library," King says. "That was 1962, and I think I was at the library three or four times a week."

King, who still lives in Lititz, says writing has long answered questions that get stuck in her head.

"It might be something I experienced and needed to process. Maybe it was just a question about life," she says. "My characters ... would just show up and live their lives. And in the process, they would sort of deal with these questions that I had."

As all three sisters wrote when they could, they kept their day jobs for years. Those ran the gamut, as do their personalities.

Kilmore, who now lives in Manheim but spends much of her time with her husband at a mountain cabin west of Harrisburg, recalls running out to the family's Lititz porch as a child to watch fire trucks go by.

"I remember being out there one day and telling my dad when I was 7 or 8, 'I want to be a firefighter when I grow up,'" she says. "He just laughed and said, 'Girls don't become firefighters.' And I said, 'Well, I'm going to be the first.'"

Kilmore says she eventually became exactly that for Lititz Fire Company, where she fought fires for 17 years. She doesn't recall her first.

"You remember the big ones. Like the Regennas Candy fire," she says. "I remember that one, because I was on the second story when it collapsed."

King enlisted in the Army as a stenographer after graduating from Millersville State College, as it was called then. The Vietnam War was still going on. She was stationed in Europe and during that time made her first visit to Scotland, a country to which she would later return while researching "The Bomber Jacket." That novel centers around a college student who buys a World War II jacket and searches Scotland for traces of the pilot who wore it.

READ: Meet the Lancaster County artists whose work is in Art of the State exhibit

A play and other projects

Gregory's new play, "Intimate Exposures" is about a late 1800s society photographer who took pictures of women working in a Reading brothel. Typically, Gregory writes a play then tries to get a theater to put it on. This time, she was asked to write something for the Reading Theater Project, specifically inspired by a book of those photos.

"I was a little skeptical at first, but I bought the book, sat down and looked at the photographs and became intrigued by the collection," Gregory says. "Because they're just not what you'd expect."

"He's looking at these women through an artist's eye, and the way he presents them and portrays them is really a fairly respectable treatment of them," she adds. "I started to become interested in what had led these girls to this place, to this house and this lifestyle."

After the play wraps up its two-weekend run this month, Gregory will likely do some rewriting. Maybe some scenes will go. Maybe some loose threads will require tying up, Gregory says. She hopes to eventually have "Intimate Exposures" published.

Next on deck for King is a four-part young adult fantasy series. She likes a new challenge.

"Once you've written a World War II – some would call it a ghost story because there's a ghost in it – they want your next World War II novel," she says. "That was great. But I want to publish something different."

Kilmore is working on a book centered around a character who shows up in "Shay the Brave," which boasts on its back cover a review by Gregory. She calls it "clever and witty, with a unique narrative voice" and refers to Shay as "a spunky heroine with Pippi Longstocking's verve, Anne Shirley's resilience and Dorothy Gale's loyalty to friends and family."

READ: After nearly 20 years, Vinegar Creek Constituency to go on indefinite hiatus

Mutual admiration

The sisters all have high praise for each other.

King respects Gregory's drive and discipline to re-write until everything is exactly right. She applauds Kilmore's imagination and use of unique language. Gregory says she admires an ability by both writing sisters to make readers want to turn pages.

Kilmore has long been in awe of Gregory's intellect, again thinking back to that attic.

"I could see her reading the encyclopedia like it was a novel. Page after page," Kilmore says. "Even as a young kid, I always thought she was wise beyond her years."

Kilmore says she herself, however, was wide-eyed and "sort of shell-shocked by life" and that Gregory "has been my guardian angel, in a way."

Likewise, Kilmore has long admired her eldest sister, recalling how King seemed to her like a rock star the day she went with her to help her move into her Millersville dorm.

It was King who – years ago, upon learning Kilmore had finished her first book – advised her to stick it in a drawer for six months and to write some short stories to build up her credentials. It was sage advice. Those short stories won awards.

"I had better success with those short stories than novel writing," Kilmore says.

But she didn't give up on a book. When Kilmore finally found a taker for "Shay the Brave" in Pennsylvania-based Wild Ink Publishing, she saw an opportunity to bring her eldest sister along through that now-open door.

Kilmore asked her publisher if she would consider reviewing King's book, even though submissions were officially closed for the year. The publisher agreed.

"And yeah, they loved it," Kilmore says. "That felt really good to me to be able to help someone in return who had been there for you all your life."