How two crime writers co-wrote a novel and stayed happily married.
In this podcast I spoke with Alexandra Sokoloff and Craig Robertson about their recent book, THE GRAPEVINE, a thriller about a mother in search of her missing daughter along the California highway coastline. It’s part of a series called The Lost Highway.
Alex and Craig are both accomplished authors with strong opinions as well as coming from very different cultural backgrounds. Yet, they manage to navigate the complexities of working together to ultimately create something unique and still stay happily married. We joked about this during the interview. They shared how they worked together along with all the differences that ultimately add dimension to their creative process.
We also talked about their many travels, conventions, as well as, a residency they went on in New Zealand, which was the place where they brainstormed their current co-written novel, THE GRAPEVINE.
Writer Bios
ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF is a native Californian who sold original scripts and wrote novel adaptations for major Hollywood studios before becoming the award-winning author of fourteen thrillers. CRAIG ROBERTSON spent twenty years as a journalist, covering some of the biggest stories across the globe. His eleven crime novels, mostly set in his native Scotland, have been shortlisted for all the UK’s major awards. They met in the US, now live in Scotland, and despite writing two books together are still married.
Book synopsis
The Grapevine
The Lost Highway Thrillers Book 1
How far would you go to find your missing child?
Lou Gomersall’s going as far as it takes.
When her nineteen-year old daughter Abby disappears, Lou embarks on a reckless road trip in the family RV, scouring the highways and back roads of California.
A year later, the police don’t believe Lou’s theory that four other missing young women have been taken by the same elusive predator.
So when another college sophomore disappears, Lou jumps on the fresh trail, enlisting millennial vanlifers, Gen Z entrepreneurs, boomer RVers, homeless sages, truck stop sex workers and everyone in between in her do-or-die mission to rescue Abby…
If it’s a Solo podcast I’ll start with a script that I write myself, usually by hand and then typed into my computer.
Then I record in my podcast video/audio editor. I use my computer camera and a separate mic.
I edit in my podcast video/audio editor. The editor tools I use may enhance the sound if there were any recording issues: tuning up the volume or minimizing background noise. I edit sound using both the transcript as well as the wav file. There are many AI bells and whistles in my editing software which I don’t really use, as I’m wanting to create something human. Handmade is my esthetic.
For the video editing, I lay public domain/royalty free images and video on top of parts of my recorded video. I also use some of my own images and videos. Each image and video clip is hand-placed by me. I am making all the creative decisions every step of the way.
When I record a podcast interview with another person it’s pretty much the same as above. Instead of a script I start with a general outline with questions. When editing an interview, I’ll probably use fewer images for the sake of time and emphasize images of the guests’ artwork or anything else that I feel would enhance the interview.
If you have any questions about how I make my podcasts, please reach out.
