Nancy Drew fans coming to town for conference

Nancy Drew fans are coming to Charlottesville this week to celebrate the fictional girl sleuth and one of her books based here.

More than 70 members of the Nancy Drew Sleuths fan club will gather for their 11th annual convention and “trace the footsteps Nancy and her friends take,” said group president Jennifer Fisher.

“We will visit some of the places [Nancy] visits in the book,” Fisher said in a phone interview last week. “It’s like a big family reunion every year when we get together.”

Two of the events, a Friday morning discussion on the book at Central Library and Saturday’s day-long conference at the Holiday Inn on Emmet Street, are open to the public.

The book, “The Hidden Window Mystery,” is the 34th volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series and was written in 1956.

In the book, Nancy and her friends come to town to find a missing stained-glass window and answer a few other questions along the way.

Presidential homes Monticello and Ash Lawn-Highland are featured in the book. Historical homes such as Seven Oaks and Mirador, both in Greenwood, are believed to be the inspiration for the homes in the book, Fisher said.

“We believe [the author] came to Charlottesville during Garden Week and was inspired to use it as the backdrop for the book,” Fisher said.

Gudrun Waern, who lives in Berlin, said she started reading the books when she was young. She is traveling 10 hours by plane to attend the convention.

“When I was young in Sweden and read those books it was not [common] for a woman to be as independent as Nancy was,” said Waern, who is 63. “She could do anything she desired. There was never any lack of money and she was so brilliant. That was the attraction and a great inspiration for me at the time.”

This will be the second Nancy Drew convention Waern has attended. She found the group while searching for Nancy Drew on the Internet.

“I have family living in Washington, D.C., so I thought it was a good idea to combine my yearly visits to them with Nancy conventions to see other parts of the States,” Waern said.

Janet DeVries, a charter member of the Nancy Drew Sleuths who grew up reading the mystery series, will be attending this year’s conference.

“I like getting together to swap stories and learn more from other Nancy Drew enthusiasts,” DeVries said. “The books are exciting and take you places you only dreamed of going. Nancy is empowered, adventurous and smart. What’s not to love?”

Fisher, who has a law degree but has never practiced, has become sort of a Nancy Drew “expert.” Along with overseeing the fan club and putting together the annual conventions, she has even written a book about the wisdom and wit of the fictional character.

The fan club, which has more than 550 members worldwide, has members of all ages. There is also a separate group for younger Nancy Drew fans.

“I think these books bring you back to your childhood,” Fisher said. “It’s a way to reach back into the past.”

For more information about the conference or about the fan club, visit www.ndsleuths.com.