Publication Date: May 16, 2025
To escape her strait-laced overbearing sister, Birdie Stauffer auditions for the all-female Versatile Quintet, Chautauqua circuit’s opening act. Through this train-traveling roadshow she experiences the tumultuous 1920’s, a modern era of shocking flappers and smuggled whiskey, with the camaraderie of newfound friends. Her exceptional gift of concert whistling entertains more than songbirds as she gains national notoriety and she’s soon entangled in two romantic relationships- one with a dapper circuit manager, the other her fellow pianist. Accompanied by four other musicians⎯a slang slinging flapper, a confident girl-next-door, a tight-lipped loner, and a virtuoso sapphic⎯and following a series of traumatic events, Birdie discovers even the best relationships can be filled with misunderstandings. As she learns to trust her intuition, she finds it may cost her love interests, her sister, and maybe even herself.
Whistling Women and Crowing Hens is the first novel written by Melora Fern. The roots of this historical fiction come from Ms. Fern’s discovery that her grandmother traveled across America in a Chautauqua circuit. At this time in history, groups toured the country, setting up tents in rural cities with the goal of spreading the arts, educational lectures, and cultural enrichment across North America. Once a Chautauqua group arrived in town, the community completely focused on this cultural week.
The Versatile Quintet gathered the talents of Florence and her harp, Mary and her violin, Adelle and her banjo, Helen and her piano, and the main character, Birdie, and her trombone. But Birdie has another talent. She has perfect pitch and can imitate almost any songbird! The story really revolves around Birdie as she leaves the controlling home of her older sister and joins the Quintet for the summer to escape her sister’s constant focus on marrying Birdie off. The women are thrown together and must learn to navigate each other’s personalities as they share the stage, stay in a different boarding house each night, and endure long train trips.
A surprising element of the story is how the “modern” transformations for young women are portrayed. When doing a dip into researching the Flapper Movement, it truly was more about the changing times and women’s attempts toward independent thinking, claiming for themselves new rules of dress and social behavior. The movies tend to focus on dresses with tassels, sassy talk, and jazz clubs. But the 1920s are essential for women seeing themselves as more than just quiet homemakers. The transformation of each character seems authentic and extensive, reflecting how much they hope to gain as they leave their respective hometowns and travel as working women.
The story was a little slow in building. However, this gave a chance to let each character unfold before the events really start to surprise the reader about halfway through. The tension of the relationships and the discovery that a mutual respect grows even when opinions differ was a triumph in the novel.
Be prepared, Melora Fern may inspire a new internet search with her first novel: Whistling Women and Crowing Hens, featuring five young women in the 1920s who join a Chautauqua circuit using their musical talents and a coveted skill of the time: bird whistling! 
The only constant in life is change – so after a year of multiple doozies, Melora Fern moved from Texas to North Carolina to become herself. Growing up as the perpetual “new kid” she persevered by making up stories and recently has learned how to hone that skill into writing fiction. As a recovering CPA, she now counts seashells, colorful stones, or words discovered on her walks. She loves a good local gin, hiking, feeding songbirds, moonrises and joyfully sharing bites of your dinner. Her tonic is a daily belly laugh combined with mindfulness. Embracing new and old friends, undiscovered and favorite places, unique and familiar books, family, and all that comes with writing currently fills her days.
After eight years of perfecting her craft with writing classes, workshops, retreats, and an awe-inspiring critique group, Melora’s months of querying agents and small presses has paid off. Her novel, “Whistling Women and Crowing Hens” (Sybilline Press) is out now. Learn more at: https://www.melorafern.com/
And join Melora Fern’s community on Instagram, Facebook, and Substack to engage in open-minded insights on life’s next chapters, writing/reading recommendations, interesting facts about 1920s nostalgia and more.
