Alice Hunter, author of 'The Serial Killer's Wife' - Psychological Thriller writer talks about working in a prison, genre tricks, and a chaotic work space.
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2021
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For our last episode of the year, we chat to psychological thriller debutant Alice Hunter. Her book is 'The Serial Killer's Wife', and tells the story of Beth Hardcastle, whose perfect marriage is obliterated when the police show up and report her husband Tom is missing.
Alice worked in prisons, part of a team offering rehabilitation courses to in-mates, often those who'd committed violent crimes. That, and her psychology degree, offered her vast experience to write the book. We talk about how conversations with in-mates wives prompted the idea for the book, and then how she streamlined the idea and worked on character.
You can hear about Alice's working day, her chaotic work-space, and how lockdown affected her enthusiasm to write.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, ahoi, welcome along to a brand new episode of writer's routine. |
| 0:13.2 | This week, we're chatting to Alice Hunter. |
| 0:16.4 | She's a debut writer. |
| 0:17.6 | Her book, The Serial Killer's wife, is out now. |
| 0:20.7 | We talk about how lockdown affected |
| 0:22.6 | her energy and her enthusiasm to write. I'm sure you'll find, well, I'm sure you've found it's |
| 0:29.0 | happened for many of us, many writers over the last 18 years, 18 months, I think is how long it's |
| 0:35.9 | been. Alice is really very good at articulating that. |
| 0:39.3 | Also we talk about the Post-it notes and the flip charts that cover her wall. |
| 0:43.3 | And Alice used to work in a prison, and she's taken that experience and the people that she met |
| 0:49.3 | and the conversations they had to write this new book. |
| 0:52.3 | They've committed such serious, violent offences, |
| 0:55.7 | but they would have their wives or girlfriends come visit, |
| 0:58.6 | and they were telling me how they were supporting them and all that sort of thing. |
| 1:02.8 | And I just, I suppose it was a thing of trying to understand those women and thinking, |
| 1:08.3 | oh, I wonder why they're standing by their partner. What do they |
| 1:12.1 | really think? And all those things. So I'd already had that in my mind from when I worked there. |
| 1:16.7 | And when the documentaries were all on about it, I just thought this would be a really good |
| 1:21.7 | thing to explore. Having, you know, using my background and things as well. It just seemed like, you know, |
| 1:28.5 | it's a perfect kind of thing to do for me. Stick around. There is more on the way. And this week's |
| 1:32.4 | writer's routine. Yes, welcome along. My name's Dan Simpson. This is Writers Routine, the show where we take a look |
| 1:46.5 | inside an author's working day. And this is our last episode of the year. Finishing a little bit |
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