Kathleen Hale on How She Found Her Way to Slenderman
In Conversation with Lindsay Hunter on I'm a Writer But
Welcome to I’m a Writer But, where writers discuss their work, their lives, their other work, the stuff that takes up any free time they have, all the stuff they’re not able to get to, and the ways in which any of us get anything done. Plus: book recommendations, bad jokes, okay jokes, despair, joy, and anything else going on that week. Hosted by Lindsay Hunter.
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In this episode, Kathleen Hale talked about the extensive research and work that went into her new book, SLENDERMAN: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls, as well as how she rewrote its 680+ page manuscript, how being canceled brought her to the story, the Wisconsin justice system, and more.
From the episode:
Kathleen Hale: I was drawn to it more and more deeply in waves over time. At first when I covered it for Vice, I was interested in it for the same reason everyone was. It was wild, it was Heavenly Creatures, it was Leopold and Loeb. It was a murder in some people’s minds, and yet it wasn’t, and it could only have happened in 2014.
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Kathleen Hale is a true crime author and TV writer based in Los Angeles. She is the author of four books. Her work has been featured in Vanity Fair, among other outlets. Hale’s article on Gabby Petito was Vanity Fair’s most read piece of 2022. It was optioned by FilmNation. Her fourth book, SLENDERMAN: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls, was optioned by Littleton Road Productions and sold to Peacock. SLENDERMAN was nominated for an Edgar Prize. It also won the 2022 Midland Writers Award for Non Fiction.
